

THE NATIONAL MAGAZINE; containing nearly 100 

Engravings, in the first style of the Art, forming in itself a Gallery of the Books of our best living 
Artists. The Literary Articles are contributed by some of our most eminent writers, thus making 
the work the best Family Magazine published. A r ols. I. II. and III., price 6s. 6d. each; also Mi 
monthly parts at Is. Cases for binding vols., price Is. (id. each. Now ready, VoL IV., in inip.8vo., clotli 
gilt, price 7s. (3d. 

THE WHALEMAN’S ADVENTURES in the Southern 

Ocean. By the Rev. Henry S. Che ever. Edited by the Rev. W. Scoresby, D.D., with Eight 

beautifully tinted Engravings. . . . .. . _. ,_ . 

“This volume contains one of the most interesting accounts of t.te excitements and dangers of 
the Whale Fisheries. The Editor’s name will be a sufficient guarantee as to the correctness of its 
descriptions.” Now Ready, New Edition, handsomely bound, price 4s. 6d. 

THE MILLER’S DAUGHTER. By Alfred Tennyson. 

By permission. Illustrated with Seventeen Steel Engravings, drawn by A. L. Bond, and engraved 
by Mote, with a portrait of the Author. In small 4to., handsomely bound in cloth, 10s., 

morocco . 

* * “This "collection of illustrated etchings is the production of an accomplished lady ; they are 
®raceful and agreeable, and as fanciful as the famous poem with which they are happily associated. 
§ome of them manifest considerable power; and, in all, there is evidence of thought and caretul 
study,as well as matured ~ 1 ‘ i '"' ” 


HEALTH F 

Physical Training of Y 
Unhealthy Employment 
As a due regard to 1 
depeuds chiefly on the a 
every man so to observe 
uot marred by his own i 
wai n them from the quie 
fcp. 8 vo. cloth, 4s. 6d, 

CASSELL’S 

V. (re-issue), containing 
vols. already published, 
Geology, Geometry, Ur 
Mathematical Illusfr'ttu 
cloth, 4s. (id. eacli^ or, 

“ The execution of eve 
and filled up a field of et 
Magazine. 

“ We cordially recomit 
Scottish Press. 

“ Tbe work is cstceme 
“ Can be commcndi 
Courier. 

“We would most earn 
“ The re-issue of C; 
Express. 

Also ready, Nos. 1 to 
Is. each. Also, to he ha 
double vols,, Is. 9d. 

TIIE YEGE 



Hints on the 

; with Observations on 
&c. 

happiness, and as this 
principles, it behoves 
of earthly bles’sings be 
hands of every one, to 
us diet. Ju.*. published 


published, Vol. 

treated of in the four, 
i Readings, Geography 
g and Education, and 
Complete, in Six Vols., 

rrnous; it has occupied 
y.”—Dublin University 

i intelligent public.”— 


lformatiou.”—Dumfries 

-Jersey Independent, 
the times.”—Ipswich 

and divisions, I to 18, 
ng single vols., Is. 3d.; 


PRODUCTS; 


serving us an introduction to the natural systeifr of Botany, and as a Text-Book to the study of all 
ve^etatile products used in the nris, mauUtachires, medicine, and domestic economy, arranged 
according to the system ofDe CaflflbUc. Illustrated with nearly 300 Engravings, and containing an I 
enumeration of 7,000 genera and 4,000 synonymes, representing about lOO.OGO species of plants. 
By RoBEitr IIouc, author of British Pomology, The Manual of Fruits, and co-ed\tor ot the Cottage 
Gardener. In crown 8vo, handsome cloth, 10s. tid. Companion vol. to Cottage Gardeners 
Dictionary. Cau also be had iu numbers, at 2d. each, and in parts at dd. aud I Id, 

THE HISTORY OF THE PAINTERS OF ALL Na¬ 
tions. By Mr. Charles Blanc, late “ Directeur des Beaux Arts,” of France. The Illustrations 
executed under the artistic direction of M. Armeugaud, of Paris. This work contains upwards oi 
100 magnificent Engravings, illustrating the Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch, German, and Flemish 
schools, with Portraits of the Painters, Fac-similes of their Handwriting, Ac. lu One. handsome 
Volume, half purple roan,roysd 4to, price 3us. 

Only a few Copies of this splendid work remain in print. 

London: W. KENT & Co., PATERNOSTER ROW, and 86, FLEET STREET. 












I 




I 



\ 




f 












































































£ 



C-VXA) j 

THE BOOK 

AND ITS STORY; 


A NARRATIVE FOR THE YOUNG: 


k'brapy of 
Oorial Baptist 


BY 



L. N. R. 


' 


ON OCCASION OF THE 

JUBILEE OF THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY ! 

an Entrotmdorg preface, tig tlje 3Aetr. $ fillips, 

Jubilee Scctetarg. 

SIXTY-SIXTH THOUSAND. 

ELEVENTH E DIT10 N, FEE S HL Y REVISED. 


LONDON: 

W. KENT & CO., 51 & 52, PATERNOSTER ROW. 

THOMAS HATCHARD, PICCADILLY. 


M.DCCC.LVIII. 



BSms 

:\%S8 


winchester: 

PRINTED BY HUGH BARCLAY, 


HIGH STREET. 


<uft 

fflUuiii t L> f t. 

& ft 


Ou 


a 

.) 

* • o 'f> 

Cl *> 


V * o 
* +<> 




Entered at Stationers’ Hall. 


PREFACE. 


This volume needs no explanatory introduction; its 
object is fully expressed in its title-page; and the reader 
will find in the perusal that it is what it professes to be. 

The “ Story” of the Book, in all ages, countries, 
and languages, is told with simplicity and truthfulness. 
The work contains the “ Story” of the Bible from the 
first dawn of revelation to the completion of the sacred 
canon, with the interesting details of its translation and 
circulation, from the earliest efforts until the present time. 
To tell the Story of the Book in former days, a mul¬ 
titude of curious facts have been culled from works of 
difficult access; and its later progress is illustrated by an 
abundant variety of statements drawn from numerous 
authentic sources. 

As the Bible Society is so identified with tire Book 
whose Story is here attempted, the origin, progress, and 
remarkable prosperity of the Institution are given with 



IV 


PREFACE. 


some minuteness of detail, and this little volume will be 
found to contain simple and interesting information about 
the Society’s actual operations. 

It professes to be a Narrative for the Young; but we are 
greatly mistaken if it be not regarded as a book suited 
to all ages, and perused with interest by all who love 
the Book whose Story it gives. We are, indeed, anxious 
that the younger members of our families should look 
upon l. as a volume intended for them, and peculiarly 
their ovm; and we are sanguine enough to expect a large 
circulation. It is our earnest desire that parents and in¬ 
structors of youth should be so fully convinced of the 
value of the Bible Society, as to lead them to embrace 
every opportunity to make its claims known; and the re¬ 
commendation of this volume may be regarded, we think, 
as a likely means, under the Divine blessing, to interest the 
young in the great and glorious work of Bible-circulation. 
In this simple way they may be the means of raising up 
a multitude of “ fellow-helpers” to the truth. If it is a 
satisfaction to be instrumental in causing the grass to 
grow, flowers to bloom, and trees to yield fruit, where all 
was barrenness and sterility before, how much greater the 
privilege to be the means of leading others, not only to 
possess the Bible themselves, but to labour and contribute 
towards its universal dissemination! 


PREFACE. 


V 


The occasion of preparing this volume, as will be seen 
in the title-page, is the Jubilee of the Bible Society, 
—an occasion fraught with solemn reflections- and ac¬ 
companied with weighty responsibilities. 

The Narrative now introduced has peculiar claims upon 
the friends of the Society—claims which no other unoffi¬ 
cial publication can possibly possess. It has been written 
by request, and solely with a view to promote the objects 
of the Institution. Great pains have been taken to render 
its varied contents as accurate as they are interesting. 
The Annual Keports, the Monthly Extracts of Correspon¬ 
dence, the History of the Society so far as written, and 
many other documents have been studied with care, while, 
to ensure correctness, the technical facts and figures have 
been submitted to the best authorities. 

It will be observed that the Book is published at an 
unusually low rate, with a view to more extensive cir¬ 
culation. We arc persuaded that its perusal will spread 
a large amount of information in families and schools, the 
value of which cannot be told in gold and silver. 

It is our heart’s desire that the readers of this volume 
may be led to value the Sacred Scriptures more than ever, 
to feel grateful for the possession of the inestimable trea¬ 
sure, and for the liberty and opportunity to engage with 
out let or hindrance in labours of Christian, usefulness. 


VI 


PREFACE. 


Finally, we pray, that all who possess the Bible may 
become more sensible of their obligations to impart to 
others—to millions still destitute—the privileges and 
blessings they so abundantly enjoy ,—remembering the 
words of the Lord Jesus ,—“ It is more blessed to 

GIVE THAN TO RECEIVE.’* T. P. 

London, 1853. 


PREFACE TO THE ELEVENTH EDITION. 

Those who love the Bible, and feel an interest in its 
circulation, will be gratified to learn that the demand for 
“The Book and its Story” in its original form is such 
as to require an Eleventh Edition, making the sixty-sixth 
thousand of the work issued in the space of four years. This 
Edition is on fine paper, with a Frontispiece on steel, “ The 
first reading of the Bible in the Crypt of old St. Paul’s. A 

NEW PLATE HAS BEEN ENGRAVED EXPRESSLY FOR THIS EDITION. 

It is extremely suitable for a gift book or prize in schools. 

The public are aware that the Tenth Edition, consisting of 
20,000 copies, was a cheaper one, published at 2s. and 2s. 6d., 
intended for distribution in Sunday Schools and among the 
Operative Classes. Some few thousands of this, are still on 
hand. 

“The Book and its Story** has been translated into 
the Dutch, German, and French languages. It is to be 
had in French of Messrs. Kent and Co., price 4s. 

The series of Fifteen Large Coloured Diagrams, illustra¬ 
tive of “ The Book and its Story,” together with “ Aids 
to Lectures ** upon them, arranged by L. N. R., may be 
had at the Depository of the Working Men*s Educational 
Union [see p. viii.). This series, under the title of “An Old 
Book and its Wonderful Story,** has proved to be among 
the most popular of any undertaken by the Educational 
Union, and has sold by hundreds of sets. T. P. 

London, January, 1858. 



AUTHOR’S PREFACE. 


In issuing the Eleventh Edition of this volume, the Author 
thankfully acknowledges its kind reception by the friends 
of The British and Eoreign Bible Society. 

The work was undertaken at the request of the Rev. 
T. Phillips, Jubilee Secretary of the Society, with the 
desire of blending scriptural information, in a form which 
should be interesting even to young children, with a 
compendious History of the Sacred Books, in ancient and 
modern times, and the detail of their universal circulation. 

For the zealous assistance of competent friends, and for 
the valuable and unremitting aid of the Jubilee Secretary, 
whose access to the archives of the Society enabled him 
to verify the continual references to its history, acknow¬ 
ledgments are gratefully rendered. 

For the beautiful Frontispiece, the Author is indebted 
to the kindness of George Harvey, Esq., r.s.a., the 
accomplished painter of the original, and to Robert 
Graves, Esq., a.r.a., the talented engraver of it. 

While thus expressing gratitude for human aid, all 
ability to tell the Story of the Book is humbly and thank¬ 
fully traced to its Divine Author. May He be pleased 
to extend still further the usefulness of this labour of love 
in the cause of Bible-distribution! And if many a reader 
should yet arise from its perusal, and say, “ I, too, must 
search the Book of God; I, too, must help to give it to 
the world,”—to God alone be all the glory ! 


1858 . 


L. N. R. 



% $tm of <Mmtb diagrams 

HAS BEEN PREPARED TO ILLUSTRATE THE LITERARY HISTORY OP THE 
BIBLE, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO 

“the book and its storY.” 

The Diagrams are executed in a hold attractive style, and are intended for the use 
of Lecturers. They are printed upon calico, and provided with 
frame and eyelets for convenient suspension. 

UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OP THE WORKING MEN’S 
EDUCATIONAL UNION. 


LIST OF THE DIAGRAMS. 

Stone Books. 

PICTURE WRITING, at Karnak, Thebes. 

WRITING ON STONE: the Rosetta Stone. 

r^TTl? IVT A ATTTQP'R T'PT' A GPG 

ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS AND WRITING MATERIALS. 
MULTIPLICATION OE COPIES : the Scriptorium and Scribe. 
THE DEATH OE THE VENERABLE BEDE. 

WYCLIF CITED BEFORE ARCHBISHOP COURTENAY. 

Bible Translators. 

THE BIBLE CHAINED. 

LUTHER FINDING THE BIBLE. 

LUTHER TRANSLATING THE BIBLE INTO GERMAN. 
The New Era. 

MULTIPLICATION OF COPIES: the Printing Press. 

Enmity to the Bible. 

THE BURNT ROLL; or, the Scriptures Destroyed. 

SEARCH FOR NEW TESTAMENTS, at Oxford and Cambridge. 
BIBLE BURNING AT PAUL’S CROSS. 

The Bible Free. 

ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL; the Jubilee Sermon. 

THE BIBLE HOUSE AND WAREHOUSE. 


Price of the set of Fifteen Diagrams , to Subscribers, ll. 7s. 6 d.; to Non-Subscribers, 
1 1. 17s. 6 d. With Frame and Eyelets for suspending Diagrams, 2s. 6 d. extra. 

The pages of the “ Book and its Story,” referred to in these “ Aids,” are those ot 
the Seventh Edition. 


LEAVES FROM THE BOOK AND ITS STORY, 

OB 

AIDS TO LECTURES ON THE FIFTEEN DIAGRAMS. 

Price One Shilling and Fourpence. 





CONTENTS 


PART I. 

THE BIBLE IN PAST AGES. 


CHAPTER I. page 

The Book and its circulation by means of the Bible Society, v 
—The ages without the Bible.—Voices from Heaven.—Patri¬ 
archal tradition.—The flood.—Renewed corruptions.—Early 
idolatries.—Ancient Egypt.—The pyramids.—The oldest 
coffin.—Thebes, Karnak, hieroglyphics, Rosetta stone.— 
Inscriptions on tombs.—The bondage.—Moses.—Arabia.— 

The Arabs.—The book of Job.—The Pentateuch, how writ¬ 
ten.—The Exode.—Number of the people.—How supported. 

—Commencement of the age of miracle.—Amalek.—Wady 
Mokatteh . . 1 


CHAPTER EL 

Mount Sinai.—The covenant, the giving of the Law.—The 
Jebel Mousa.—Jehovah.—Seven sins and their punishments. 

—Eleven months at Sinai.—The unknown thirty-eight years. 

—The last year of the wandering.—Mount Hor.—The death 
of Aaron.—The law as made known to the people.—Fiery 
serpents.—The death of Moses.20 

CHAPTER m. 

Entrance to the land.—Joshua.—The Canaanites.—Joshua’s 
victories.—Ebal and Gerizim.—The Judges.—The six ser¬ 
vitudes.—The times of the Kings.—David.—Solomon.—Divi¬ 
sion of the kingdom.—Shishak.—The prophets, their rolls. 

—Table of prophets.—The lost ten tribes.—The lost roll, 




X 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

the burnt roll.—Captivity and return.—Ezra’s ministry.— 
Review of the history and prophecies concerning the fall of 
Israel, Nineveh, Judah, Tyre, Petra, Thebes, and Babylon . 32 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Jewish Bible complete;—The Apocrypha.—The Septua- 
gint.—Daniel’s two pictures.—Antiochus Epiphanes.—The 
Maccabees.—Judas Maccabeus.—The Roman power.—Pom- 
pey.—Caesar.—The Druids.—Their Hebrew origin.—Ser¬ 
pent-worship.—Druidical remains.—Greek philosophers.— 
Herod.—The temple.—The synagogues.—Traditions of the 
Pharisees. — Targums. — Pharisees and Sadducees. — The 
faithful few.—The rabbins.—John the Baptist.—His minis¬ 
try.—Our Lord’s advent.—His mission.—Books of the New 
Testament.—The first century.—Its apostles and elders.— 

The Last Supper.—Violent death of all who partook of it, 
except John.—First and second pagan persecutions.—De¬ 
struction of Jerusalem .... . 61 


CHAPTER V. 

Gradual circulation of the New Testament.—Earliest heresies. 

—Uninspired teachers.—Progress of the gospel.—The Book 
becomes the guide.—Eight more pagan persecutions.—Par¬ 
ticulars of these.—Dioclesian’s medals.—Reign of Constan¬ 
tine, his mistaken zeal.—The rise of monasteries.—Progress 
of the papacy.—Alaric.—Versions of Scripture.—The Alex¬ 
andrine version.—First protests.—Vigilantius.—Nestorius. 

—The Nestorian Christians.—The Armenian church.—The 
Paulicians.—The Abyssinian church.—The British church 
in Wales, in Scotland, in Ireland.—Succat.—Columba.— 

Iona . ........ 86 

CHAPTER VL 

The fall of England’s Protestantism.—Augustine’s mission.— 
Bede.—King Alfred.— General ignorance.—The Vaudois 
church.—Early protests.—Claude of Turin.—Vaudois col¬ 
porteurs.—Waldo.—His translation of the Bible.—Sketch of 
the Vaudois people.—Their knowledge of Scripture.—Inno¬ 
cent III.—The inquisition.— Torments.— Steadfastness.— 

The vows of Luzerna.—The Bohemian Christians . .112 

CHAPTER VII. 

Che earthquake council.—John Wiclif.—The law made at 
Toulouse.—Romish revenge on Wiclif.—His translation of 



CONTENTS. 


XI 


the Scriptures.— Lollard martyrs.—Sawtre.—Lady Jane 
Boughton.—Lord Cobham.—Black-friars’ monastery.—Site 
of Bible-house.—Printing.—Anger of monks.—Use of mo¬ 
nasteries.—Reading and writing of the Scriptures at Clugni. 
Translations, preparing.—Gift of the Vaudois church to 
France.—Olivetan s version.—De Sacy’s version.—Colpor¬ 
teurs. Translations of the Bible extant up to the sixteenth 
century.—Particulars concerning each . . . .124 

CHAPTER Yin. 

Tyndal. Erasmus.—Tonstall.—More.—Wolsey.—Search for 
Testaments in London, Oxford, and Cambridge.—Scenes 
in St. Paul’s cathedral, and at Paul’s cross. — Deaths of 
Tyndal and of Wolsey.—Description of frontispiece, with 
martyrdom of Ann Askew. — Luther. — List of languages 
before 1804.— Summing up of the narrative . . . 148 


PART II. 

THE BIBLE SOCIETY’S HOUSE. 

THE PRINTING AND BINDING OF THE BIBLE. 


CHAPTER I. 

The Bible-house.—Its library.—Wiclifs Testament.—Tyndal’s 
Bible.—Coverdale’s Bible.—The Geneva Bible. — The Bi¬ 
shops’ Bible.—Authorised version.—Welsh Bible.—Euro¬ 
pean languages.—Swedish Bible.—Polyglots.—Dutch Bible. 

—Luther’s Bible.—Bohemian Bible.—Eastern languages.— 
Persian Testament. —Pali, Hinduwee, Bengalee, etc.— 
Separate translations of the Bible into Chinese.— The 
Lord’s Prayer in all languages.—The Douay version.—The 
Society’s departed friends.—The manuscript library.—The 
Breton Bible.—Wales and Brittany.—Syrian, Persian, Chi¬ 
nese, Ethiopic, and Amharic manuscripts.—The Amharic 
Bible.— Mr. Jowett’s account of it.—How the Society 
obtains its translations.—Their revision.—The general com¬ 
mittee-room.—The case of Bibles.—The Bible for the blind.— 

The sub-committee-room.—Portraits.—The Bible-warehouse 177 




CONTENTS. 


xii 


PAGE 

CHAPTER II. 

Bible-printing at Shacklewell.—Ancient printing-office.—The 
compositor. —The reader.—Stereotyping.—Binding.—Num¬ 
ber employed 201 


PART III. 

THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY’S RISE, 
PROGRESS, AND PRESENT OPERATIONS. 


CHAPTER I. 

Rev. T. Charles.—Particulars of his youth.—His missionary 
spirit.—His usefulness to the young.—Scarcity of the Scrip¬ 
tures in Wales.— Circulating schools.— Committing the 
Bible to memory.—Grown-up scholars.—Meeting of twenty 
schools.—The little girl who had no Bible.—The twelve 
peasants.—Mr. Charles’s visit to London.—Tract committee. 

—Wants of Wales, and of the world.—Formation of the 
British and Foreign Bible Society.—Collections in Wales.— 
Influential friends and supporters.—Objects and constitution 
of the Society, formed alike for home and the world.—Its 
principle.—Union and co-operation of all parties.—Rev. J. 
Owen.—Rev. J. Hughes ... . . 221 

CHAPTER H. 

Arrival of Bibles inWales.—Answer to prayer forMr.Charles.— 

His visit to Ireland.—His funeral.—Want of the Scriptures 
in Scotland and in France.—Revocation of the edict of Nantes, 
and its results.—Sufferings of the Huguenots and Yaudois.— 
Reaction of infidelity.—Desire of England to circulate the 
Bible in France.—Oberlin and the Ban de la Roche.—Scrip¬ 
ture-readers.—Bible Societies atWaldbach and Nuremberg.— 
Scarcity of the Scriptures even in Europe.—Their circula¬ 
tion among French and Spanish prisoners of war.—Bible 
Society at Berlin.—Willingness of a priest to distribute the 
New Testament.—The field of labour in Asia.—Chinese 
gospels in the British Museum.—India and the Tamil language. 

—Africa.—America . . . 236 




CONTENTS. 


PAGB 

CHAPTER HL 

The Bible Society’s “Reports” not dull books: what it is that they 
contain.—The sway of Great Britain and its purpose.—The 
world’s inhabitants, in five classes.—The work of the Bible 
Society amongst each.—The way it is accomplished, by divi¬ 
sion of labour, and by various agents.—The Bible Society 
like the banian tree-_ its fibres taking root in the Protestant 
countries, first in England, by the auxiliaries and Bible Asso¬ 
ciations.— The system gradually matured.—Arrangement 
of districts.—Ladies’ committees.—The results of co-opera¬ 
tion.—Objections to the Society.—Lord Teignmouth’s an¬ 
swer.—Mr. Dealtry’s.—Mr. Ward’s.—Operations at home. 

—Extracts from reports of collectors.—The dying child.— 

The old woman and the wool.—The Bible-bees.—The gun 
and the Bible.—Mr. Dudley’s review.—Death of Mr. Owen. 

—Distribution of the Scriptures in Ireland.—Anecdotes 249 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Bible Society in Holland.—Ali Bey’s Turkish Bible.— 
Prayer for Bible Societies.—Germany.—Its religious state 
previous to the existence of the Bible Society.—Dr. Schwabe’s 
tour.—Mr. Owen’s letters.—Prussia.—Royal patronage.— 
Switzerland.—Antistes Hess.—Dr. SteinkopfFs report.— 
Lausanne Bible Society.—Sweden.—Norway.—Iceland.— 

Mr. Henderson’s letters.—Denmark.—The United States of 
America ... .... 272 

CHAPTER V. 

The Jews, after their dispersion, in Rome, Spain, Portugal, 
France, Germany, Turkey, and England.—Their sufferings, 
and the remission of these.—Their numbers all over the world. 

—What the Society did for them in its first twenty-five years. 

—Letters of Dr. Pinkerton from Russia.—Jews of Thessa- 
lonica and Constantinople.—Jewish converts.—The Society’s 
work among the Syrian Christians in the Armenian church, 
in the Nestorian, and in the Abyssinian.—Letters from Mr. 
Pearce.—Grants to the Vaudois church.—Its gratitude . 290 

CHAPTER VI. 

The work of the Bible Society among Roman Catholics.— 

The Greek church.—Distribution of the Bible by Roman- 
Catholic priests.—General willingness of the Roman-Catho¬ 
lic laity to receive it.—Anecdotes.—Leander Van Ess.— 
France.—Professor Kieffer.—The nrayer of the dying sister, 


XIV 


CONTEXTS. 


PAGE 

and its answer.—Austria and Belgium.—The Roman-Catho¬ 
lic portions of Germany, Prussia, Poland, and Switzerland. 

—Italy, Spain, and Portugal.—Russia: the Bible Society 
there; its extinction.—The tribe of Buriats.—Turkey, Eu¬ 
ropean and Asiatic; its mixed population.—The Turks.— 
Foreign agency.—Mr. Barker.—Greece.—South America. 

—Dr. Thomson.—A few words on the Apocrypha.—The 
Mahomedan countries.—The Heathen countries . . .313 

CHAPTER VII. 

Death of Lord Teignmouth, and of Mr. Hughes.—Bible colpor- 
tage upon the continent.—Osee Derbecq.—Characteristics of 
colporteurs.—The young Bible-collector in Jersey.—Juve¬ 
nile Bible Associations.—Individual efforts to distribute the 
Scriptures.—The Testament among the fishing-people of 
Boulogne.—A tract the pioneer of the Bible.—Statistics of 
infidel publications.349 


CHAPTER VIII. 

Jubilee review of the heathen countries of the world.—The 
Bible in India.—In China: extraordinary religious movement 
there : Sew-tseuen, the leader of the insurgents.—Japan, in 
all probability without a Bible.—Loochoo islands . .371 

CHAPTER IX. 

Jubilee review continued.—Circulation of the Bible in Austra¬ 
lia, Borneo, Tahiti, Rarotonga, Mangaia, New Zealand, and 
South Africa.—The Bible among Mahomedans, in Roman- 
Catholic countries, in Austria, in Spain and Portugal, in 
Switzerland and Italy, and in France .... 405 

CHAPTER X. 

The old fountain restored in Assyria.—The Nestorian church.— 
American missions.—Mr. Layard’s testimony.—The Ar¬ 
menian, the Coptic, the Abyssinian, and the Waldensian 
churches.—The Jews.—Jerusalem.—Nazareth . . . 430 

CHAPTER XI. 

The Protestant countries : Holland, Germany, Denmark, Nor- , 
way, and Sweden.—State of the Continent.—Lord Bexley. 

—Mr. Brandram.—Wales.— Scotland.—England.—Ireland. 

—Home colporteurs and collectors.—Final appeal.—Motives 
for renewed exertion ...... 455 

Addenda to the Seventh Edition .... 4S3 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


PART I. 


THE BIBLE IN BAST AGES. 







THE 


BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE BOOK AND ITS CIRCULATION BY MEANS OF THE BIBLE SOCIETY. 
-THE AGES WITHOUT THE BIBLE.-VOICES FROM HEAVEN.-PA¬ 
TRIARCHAL TRADITION.-THE FLOOD.-RENEWED CORRUPTIONS. 

-EARLY IDOLATRIES.-ANCIENT EGYPT.-THE PYRAMIDS.-THE 

OLDEST COFFIN.-THEBES, KARNAK, HIEROGLYPHICS, ROSETTA 

STONE.-INSCRIPTIONS ON TOMBS.-THE BONDAGE.-MOSES.- 

ARABIA.-THE ARABS.-THE BOOK OF JOB.-THE PENTATEUCH, 

HOW WRITTEN.-THE EXODE.-NUMBER OF THE PEOPLE.— 

HOW SUPPORTED.-COMMENCEMENT OF. THE AGE OF MIRACLE. 

-AMALEK.-WADY MOKATTEB. 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

In almost all the houses in England, may now be found 
One Book,—the oldest and the most wonderful book in 
the world. 

This Book, the Bible, is a Revelation from God. The 
word revelation means the rolling back of a veil; so the 
Bible unveils to man what otherwise he could not know 
of the Great God, of man, and of Jesus Christ, who is 
God and man “ in one person for ever.” 

God caused holy men to write on these subjects that 
which He taught them; and, being written, He meant 
it to be known throughout all the world, by every hu¬ 
man creature. 


2 




2 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


But this Book did not always lie upon almost every 
table in England. It is only within the last fifty years 
that it entered into the minds of some good men to seek 
the union of all denominations of Christians, for the pur¬ 
pose of translating this Holy Bible into every language, 
and then of printing and sending it forth into every land 
and every family ; and when they had effected this union 
for so great a work, they took the name of The British 
and Foreign Bible Society. 

This Bible Society has a Story, and they have wished 
their Story written for those who weie not born when 
their Society arose. Before, however, we begin to tell 
you the Story of the Bible Society, which is a true and 
glorious tale that will certainly stir all the young hearts 
that listen to it, to desire to work in its service, it will be 
necessary for you that we go back for awhile to the Story 
of the Bible itself, and that we inquire what that Book is, 
and whence it came. 

And now, while we attempt to lead you to retrace the 
times of its beginning, we have one request to make, that 
you will read, with your Bible by your side, and turn to 
the references made to Scripture as they occur. You have 
not to search through “ houses of rolls,” and long files of 
ancient manuscripts, to see if the Story be true; for all 
the wonders that will be told you, concern a small volume 
that can be held in the hand of the youngest child ca¬ 
pable of understanding it. 

May the Holy Spirit of God lead us reverently to seek, 
throughout our lives, for “all truth” contained in his 
high and holy word, which is able to make us “ wise,” 
and “ wise unto salvation ” ! 


THE AGES WITHOUT THE BIBLE. 

You know, perhaps, that this world existed for 2500 
years or more after the creation of mankind, without a 


THE AGES WITHOUT THE BIBLE. 3 

written revelation; and Moses tells us, that, during that 
period, the wickedness of man was “ great upon the 
earth,”-*—so that a just and holy God swept the whole 
human race away, and washed out their remembrance* 
with the exception of one family, saved in the ark, to be 
the founders of new nations. 

Did you ever think of the way in which the Almighty, 
in the midst of this abounding wickedness, preserved 
amongst the few, the knowledge of his Name? He held 
immediate intercourse with one patriarch after another, 
by voices from heaven, and he had spoken much with 
Adam. Adam lived nearly 700 years after the birth of 
his grandson Enos, when it is said men “ began to call 
themselves by the name of the Lord.” With Adam, 
during the days of his long life, all who desired it might 
converse. Enos lived far into the days of the holy 
Enoch, of whom it is said that he “walked with God, 
and was not, for God took him.” Enoch would certainly 
teach the truth to his own son Methuselah, with whom 
he lived 300 years: in giving him his name, he uttered a 
prophecy, for the word means, “He dies, and it is sent”; 
and Methuselah died in the year of the flood. Noah, 
bom 400 years after Methuselah, might have talked with 
him for 600 years before the flood, so that in a line of 
only five persons, all that Adam, who was made in God’s 
own image, “knew of his Creator” would be handed 
down from tongue to tongue; and doubtless Adam, 
Enoch, and Noah, at least, were actual “ preachers of 
righteousness” to all who would hear them. 

Shem, then, the son of Noah, who lived 500 years 
after he came out of the ark, and of whom it is said, 
“Blessed be the Lord God of Shem,” would, with the 
other patriarchs, convey all that was known of God, to 
the people fast growing up around them; and this know¬ 
ledge would at first, in all probability, be carried, at the 
dispersion of mankind, into the different districts in which 
they settled. It is thought, that Noah being “a husband- 


4 THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

man,” never removed far from the regions where the ark 
rested: that Ham went forth into Africa, Japheth into 
Europe, while Shem, who was the favoured son, remained 
in Asia. 

But with this possible knowledge of the true God, we 
know that very soon there was mingled the “corruption” 
of a former world: men began to adore, in God’s stead, 
the sun and moon, which they did, because they observed 
them to be moving bodies, and thought them living ones, 
in the heavens. 

The Egyptians named their kings Pharaoh, from Phra , 
the sun, and worshipped them, when dead; and very 
early, as we learn from the picture-writing, or hierogly¬ 
phics on the walls of their ancient temples, mixed up 
their true and noble notions of God, and of the past, and 
of the future, with base idolatries, not only of sun, moon, 
stars $ and men, but of brutes, reptiles, plants, and even 
insects. They bowed down to bulls, crocodiles, lily- 
dowers, onions, and beetles; yet they wefe men of mighty 
thoughts, and their ideas of building were so vast, that at 
this day we should say the records of their structures 
were fables, did not the immense remains exist, to witness 
to the truth of history. What child has not heard of the 
pyramids, now believed to be older than Abraham ? Many 
think that Job spoke of them when he referred to “ the 
men who build desolate places for themselves.” 

Three of these astonishing buildings stand eleven miles 
west of the Nile. The largest is built of hewn-stones, 
»ome of them thirty feet long. A French engineer has 
calculated that the stones of that huge pile, called the 
“ Great Pyramid,” would suffice to build a wall all round 
France, measuring 1800 miles,—a wall one foot thick, 
and ten feet high. These vast mountains of stone appear 
to have been intended as tombs for the kings of Egypt. 
Sinee the year 1834, we have been sure of this, for in the 
third pyramid of Ghizeh has been found the stone coffin 
of the king for whom it was built, the coffin of King 


THE AGES WITHOUT THE BIBLE. 


5 


Mykerinus. On the floor of its sepulchral chamber was 
discovered a mummy-case, or rather its broken lid (for the 
pyramid had been rifled hundreds of years before by the 
Saracens), which proved to be, from the picture-writing 
upon it, the mummy-case and coffin of the builder.* 

That ancient lid, perhaps 4000 years old, is now in the 
British Museum; you can go and see it there; and the 
far-off time to which it belongs, and the certainty of the 
occupant, throw an awful interest round this relic of the 
first Pharaohs. 

These ancient and extraordinary Egyptians, whose 
thoughts seem always to have been occupied with their 
temples and their tombs, believed that the spirit, when it 
left the body, wandered on, never resting, giving life to 
some beast of the field, some fowl of the air, some fish of 
the sea,—waiting for the redemption of the original body; 
therefore they took great pains to preserve their bodies 
after death, in time-proof mansions. They had no writ¬ 
ten revelation to which to refer, to set them right when 
they were wrong; and after the death of the patriarchs, 
they derived their knowledge from tradition, or that 
which one told another; for God never spoke to them by 
a voice from heaven. 

Before we leave them, and with Israel “go up out of 
Egypt,” under the care of Moses, “ learned in all the 
wisdom of the Egyptians,” you would like to follow with 
us for a little while the steps of recent travellers into this 
region. You must take nineteen days’ journey up the 
Nile, to the ancient Thebes, which was Egypt’s old metro¬ 
polis, long before Israel was settled in the land of Goshen. 

Thebes or Theba means the ark; and the chief tem¬ 
ple there seems to have been built in commemoration of 
the deluge;—a boat-like shrine was the most sacred ob¬ 
ject in the ancient Egyptian temples. 

* Herodotus had said that the third pyramid was built by King 
Mykerinus.—Book 2, p. 133. 


6 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Thebes is a city that was thought worthy of mention 
in Scripture: it is there called, “No-Ammon,” “popu¬ 
lous No,” perhaps from No-ah. Its acres of ruins remain 
to this day. Belzoni says, that among them he felt as in 
a city that had been built by giants. Its situation is 
grander than even that of the seven-hilled city of Rome, 
“ The whole valley of the Nile was not large enough to 
contain it, and its extremities rested on the bases of the 
mountains of Arabia and Africa.” 

It stood upon a vast plain describing a circuit of thirty 
miles, and was called, “ the City of the Hundred Gates,” 
and the whole extent is still strewed with broken columns, 
avenues of sphinxes, colossal figures, obelisks, porticoes, 



A Sphinx. 


blocks of polished granite; and above these, in all the 
nakedness of desolation, tower the amazing pillars of the 
ancient temples. The largest and the oldest among these 
ruins is called “the Temple of Karnak”; and 134 of its 
pillars are still standing in rows, nine deep. There is no 
other such assembly of pillars in the world: they are 
covered with paintings of gods, kings, priests, and war¬ 
riors : the walls and roof are still glowing with the richest 
colours. Some parts of this temple, at least, are older than 
the days of Moses,—1600 years before the birth of Christ. 

The interest of these ruins is unspeakable, because 




HIEROGLYPHICS. 


7 


those who are acquainted with the subject know that the 
ancient history of Egypt is to be read in these vast old 
books of stone. Men have only lately acquired the power 
to read them. The picture-writing (or hieroglyphics) on 
their pillars and tablets is thought to have been known 
only to the priests, and has for more than 2000 years 
been a mystery to the world. Moses probably understood 
it, for “ he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyp¬ 
tians” (Acts 7. 22). 

Mr. Gliddon, formerly the American consul in Egypt, 
and who devoted his attention for many years to the 
study of hieroglyphics, has, we think, made clear even to 
a child how this kind of writing arose. 

He says, “ Suppose we wished to write the word ‘ Ame¬ 
rica’ in our language, in hieroglyphics, as the Egyptians 
did, we should draw a figure beginning with— 

A, for instance, an asp, the emblem of 
reignty; 

M, of military dominion, a mace; 

E, the national arms, an eagle; 


R, sign of intellectual power, horns of a ram; 


I, the juvenile age of the country, an infant; 
C, civilised religion, sacred cake; 

A, Tau, or Egyptian emblem of eternal life; 



8 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


“To show that by this we mean a country , I add the 
sign , in Coptic ‘ Kah,’ meaning a country. 

“We thus obtain— 

A M E R I C A; 



country/’ 


These are called pure hieroglyphics,' and are found on 
the oldest monuments and papyri. 

The pure hieroglyphics afterwards became linear, or 
line-like, as reduced from the rude pictures— 

Pure. Linear. 

A reed, used for letter A. 


A jackal, symbol of a Priest. 

A goose, used for letter S, figuratively 
the bird goose—symbol of offspring. 

The pure class was always sculptured or painted, and, 
in general, both sculptured and painted were employed 
on public edifices. The linear was preferred in ordinary 
life and writing. 

This writing became known to the modems through a 
slab of black marble, with inscriptions upon it, in three 
different characters, but all meaning the same thing, dug 




ROSETTA STONE. 


9 


up by a French officer of engineers, on the western bank 
of the Nile, in August 1799, at Rosetta, not far from the 
mouth of the Nile. It is called the “ Rosetta Stone,” and 
is now in the British Museum. 



We have given you a drawing of it for those who 
cannot go and see it, and a specimen of the characters in 
which the three languages are written. Learned men 
found they could read the last inscription in ancient Greek; 
and then, letter by letter, and with much pains-taking, 
they found the alphabet of the two others; and so this 
stone, more valuable to them than the wonderful Koh-i- 
noor, has enabled them to read the histories of those 
grand old dead kings, on their tombs. 

The event recorded on the stone is not so wonderful in 
itself: it concerns the coronation of King Epiphanes, 
which took place at Memphis, 196 years before Christ; 





10 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


but whatever be the inscription, it has proved the key tc 
many more. 

One of the most remarkable inscriptions oft the tombs 
at Thebes is the balance scene, which is laid in the world 
of spirits. Osiris, the chief god of the Egyptians, is 
seated on a throne of judgment, with Isis his consort by 
his side: a soul is conducted into his presence. Anubis, 
painted with the head of a jackal, superintends the 
balance, in which the good and bad actions of the soul 
are laid; and Thoth, a kind of recording angel, having 
the head of a hawk, stands by, with a tablet and pen in 
his hand, to record the judgment given. 

There are also upon the walls of Thebes, inscriptions a 
thousand times more interesting than this, to the readers 
of the Bible, because they serve as proofs of the events 
which it records. The bondage of the children of Israel, 
in Egypt, is thus confirmed by a tablet representing them 
on the tomb of Rekshare. Rekshare is known to have 
been the chief architect of the temples and palaces at 
Thebes, under Pharaoh Moeris. The physiognomy of 
the Jews it is impossible to mistake: and the splashes of 
clay with which their bodies are covered,—the idea of 
labour that is conveyed—the Egyptian taskmaster seated 
with his heavy baton, whose blows would certainly visit 
some weary slave, resting a moment from his toilsome 
task of making bricks, and spreading them to dry in the 
burning sun of Egypt,—all give proof of the exactness of 
the Scripture phrase, “ all their service that they made 
them serve was with rigour.” 

The inscription at the top of the picture to the right 
reads, “ Captives brought by his majesty, to build the 
temples of the Great God.” This probably means, that 
the family or gang of Israelites, here represented, had 
been marched up from Goshen, and attached to the 
building of the temples at Thebes. We know, from 
Exod. 1. 11, 12, that they were compelled to build “ for 
Pharaoh, treasure-cities, Pithom and Raamses.” 


ARABIA. 


11 


But the time of that bondage had an end, and the 
“ sigh” and “ cry” of the oppressed people came up unto 
God. They had not forgotten that they were the chil¬ 
dren of a Mighty Promise; and God, too, looked down 
upon them, and heard their groaning, and remembered 
his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 

He had so ordered it, that eighty years before, one of 
the Hebrew babes doomed to destruction had, by its ex¬ 
ceeding beauty, won the favour of Pharaoh’s daughter; 
and the child, separated from its people, had grown up 
beneath the shadow of the Egyptian throne ; yet^nursed 
by its mother in its early days, and taught, while she 
nursed him, all she knew of the dealings of God with 
his people in the ages before the flood and after it, Moses 
had treasured her sayings in his heart. He could not be 
ignorant of the future prospects of his race ; and it seems 
that he considered he was raised up to deliver them at 
once, in the hour when he smote the Egyptian for their 
sake ; but they rejected his help, learned though he was, 
and “ mighty in words and in deeds.” 

He was then only forty years of age; and God had 
lessons for him to learn for forty years more, in the soli¬ 
tudes of Midian, of a very different kind from those which 
he had learned in Egypt, but equally necessary to fit him 
to be the leader of this chosen people. 

Here, by a long process of quiet teaching, the ardent 
zeal of his youth was mellowed by that spirit of humility 
and patience which the Divine Being poured out upon 
him. This fresh “ wisdom” was given to him in Arabia; 
and with Arabia we must begin a new section. 

ARABIA. 

The three great nations of remote antiquity are the 
Egyptians, the Arabians, and the Jews. 

The Arabs are a people who can bring monuments 
of their history almost from the very deluge. For the 


12 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


nature of their country, its three divisions, its three evils, 
its three animals, and its three productions, we advise you 
to search in that beautiful book, called “ Far Off,”* which 
is, or ought to be, in all our school-rooms; and to the 
information you will there find, we will add a few more 
particulars, as we wish you to realize Arabia, especially 
the north-western part of it, as it was in the days of Moses. 

Arabia has been called “ Africa in little.” It was, as 
it is now, a country without a navigable river—the camel 
its ship of commerce, and its horses the finest in the world. 
" An Arab, on a mare unrivalled for speed and endurance, 
is his own master,” says Mr. Layard, “ and can defy the 
world. Without his mare, money would be of no value 
to him; he could only keep the gold by burying it in 
some secret place ; and he is himself never two days in the 
same spot, but wanders over three or four hundred miles 
in the space of a few months. Give him the desert, his 
mare, and his spear, with power to plunder and rob for 
the mere pleasure and excitement it affords, and he will 
not envy the wealth or power of the greatest of the earth.” 

Such was and such is the Bedouin of the deserts—the 
Saracen of the middle ages—who has never by any con¬ 
quest been driven out of his country—a vast space of 
winding sands, where those who travel now , declare that 
not even a wolf can live three days unless he feeds on 
stone and granite. Perhaps, because it is such a country, 
the Arab has of necessity reaped the harvests of surround¬ 
ing lands,—“ his hand against every man, and every man’s 
hand against him.” His fathers have been the conquerors 
of all modern eastern nations, and his language is spoken 
more or less from India to the Atlantic. The Arabs say 
that they are sprung from two sources, that a part of 
them are the sons of Ishmael, and are the naturalised 
Arabs, but that the pure Arabs, “ Arab-el-Arab,” are 
the sons of Joktan, the great-great-grandson of Shem. 

* By the author of “ Line upon Line,” and “ Near Home.” 


THE BOOK OF JOB. 


13 

We shall only notice, among their tribes, the Jobaritae, 
who are said to claim descent from Job of the Bible.* 
Now, it is by almost all learned men admitted, that the 
book of Job is of extreme antiquity. The Syrian Chris¬ 
tians place it as the first book in their Bibles. It may 
give you a new and very interesting view of this book if, 
after reading the first ten chapters of Genesis, the account 
of the creation and the flood, you read the history of this 
patriarch , before commencing the life of Abraham. Job 
is believed, by some of the most eminent eastern scholars, 
to have been an Arabian emir, or chief; and his story 
casts, we think, “ a flood of light on an otherwise dark 
part of the world’s history.” f 

We can imagine Moses, in Midian, which was a neigh¬ 
bouring district to that in which Job had lived, centuries 
before, as finding in some written character, which he 
from his Egyptian wisdom understood, the records left of 
this great man, before whom “ princes and nobles had 
been silent,” and, under the immediate inspiration of 
God, casting these records into the form of a Hebrew 
poem, as a picture of patience and impatience, for the 
benefit of his suffering brethren. The book of Job is 
generally considered to have been written or translated 
by Moses. Possibly he also wrote in Midian, in the long 
days of his secluded shepherd life, and also by God’s 
teaching, the book of Genesis. 

We must give you a few reasons why it has been sup¬ 
posed that the book of J ob is so old: 

His long life of certainly two and perhaps three or four 
hundred years. 

The absence of any reference in the book to God’s 
dealings with Abraham or his children; and of any 
notice of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. 

The worship of the sun and moon, being the only 
species of idolatry mentioned in the book (Job 31. 26). 

* Forster’s “ Geography of Arabia.” 
f Smith’s “Patriarchal Age,” p. 416- 


14 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


The manners and customs described, which are those 
of the earliest patriarchs. 

And Job’s religion, which is exactly and purely patri¬ 
archal. 

The learned men above referred to are of opinion that 
there is sufficient proof that Job lived between the deluge 
and the call of Abraham,* so that God never left the 
world at any period without a witness to his truth. The 
magnificence of the thoughts uttered both by Job and 
his friends, and, above all, by God, when he answered 
Job out of the whirlwind, you will perceive more and 
more as you grow older ; and, as you are reading, you 
will indeed be ready to say, “ How much these ancient 
Arabians knew of God!” The patriarch Job and his 
friends, notwithstanding the mistakes they made, are men 
who seem to have conversed with the Invisible, to 
have read him reverently in the vast volume of his works, 
and also to have received, from of old, the prophecies of 
the latter-day glory (Job 19. 25); while, as concerning 
worldly knowledge,—the art of mining (ch. 28); the art 
of weaving (ch. 7. 6); the conveyance of merchandise by 
caravans (ch. 6. 19); the refining of metals (ch. 28. 1); 
the coinage of money (ch. 42. 11); the use of musical 
instruments (ch. 21. 12),—all were understood and prac¬ 
tised. 

It may be, you never thought of this state of things 
as existing before the giving of the Law on Sinai. We 
are now passing into the age when the Pentateuch began 
to be written. Perhaps you will like to think of the 
material it was written upon, and the character in which 
Moses wrote it. This is a piece of ancient Hebrew—the 
language in which the law was written— 



* Job alludes to the deluge, ch. 9. 5, 6; also ch. 12 15 


THE PENTATEUCH. 


15 


The Bible was written by degrees, and by different 
persons: it took 1600 years to write. The first five books 
were written by Moses in the wilderness, as well as the 
book of Job; viz. 

Genesis, Numbers, 

Exodus, Deuteronomy, 

Leviticus, 

called, by the Grecian Jews, “The Pentateuch.” The 
rest of the Old Testament books, thirty-three in number, 
were written by different inspired leaders, prophets, 
priests, and kings, of Israel, but all by Israelites,—the 
people whom God had chosen, and was now about to 
separate from the heathen nations, to be the keepers of 
his holy oracles: and as they were written, God Him¬ 
self made laws that they should be read, by the Levites, 
to the people continually. 

But at that time there were no books like our books. 
The time of Moses was 1550 years before Christ our 
Saviour came into the world. Our mode of printing or 
of making paper had not then been discovered. The 
old Egyptians made linen, in which they wrapped their 
mummies, and so prepared it, that they could trace hiero¬ 
glyphics upon it. They also wrote upon rolls made of 
their rush-papyrus, that is, of the coats which surround 
its stalk. The largest papyrus roll now known, is ten 
yards long: many of these are found in the tombs of 
Egypt, though not often of so great a length. A very 
valuable one has been taken from these tombs to the 
museum, at Turin, containing the names of King Myke- 
rinus, the builder of the third pyramid, and Rekshare, 
the architect of Thebes; but the Pentateuch of Moses is 
not supposed to have been written on this rush-paper. 

It is thought that he must have used goat-skins, pre¬ 
pared and fastened together: the very oldest manuscripts 
of his five books known, are written on leather. There is 
one in the public library, at Cambridge, which was dis¬ 
covered by Dr. Buchanan, in the record-chest of a syna- 


16 THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

gogue of the Black Jews, in Malabar, in 1806: it measures 
sixteen yards in length; and, though not perfect, consists 
of thirty-seven skins dyed red. 
There is another in the library 
of the British Museum, which 
we have seen. That is a large 
double roll of this description. 
It is written with great care, 
on forty thick brown skins, 
in 153 narrow columns: the 
writing is, of course, in He¬ 
brew. We looked upon it 
with great reverence, for it 
was, most probably, in this 
form that the world received 
the first part of the word of 
God,—his written voice from heaven. 

It was while feeding his flock among the mountains 
of the desert, that Moses was first made sensible of the 
visible and miraculous presence of God, by the voice out 
of the burning bush, and entered upon that wonderful 
life of actual converse with the Divine Being, which was 
like the life of no other mortal man, before or since his 
time. 

The opening of this intercourse took place at Horeb, 
—a name now applied to the mountain at whose base 
stands the convent of St. Catherine. The token of 
his mission given to Moses was, that “ when he had 
brought the people out of Egypt, they should serve God 
upon that mountain.” Here, therefore, they actually 
encamped; and the same place, with all its mighty 
memories, was the retreat of Elijah, 600 years after¬ 
wards, from the threats of Jezebel. 

We need not detail to you the rapid succession of 
plagues showered upon the oppressors of the Israelites, or 
speak at any length upon what happened between the 
going up out of Egypt and the giving of the Law upon 



THE EXODE. 


17 


mount Sinai. There were great miracles comprised in 
this six weeks’ history, and you will find them recorded 
from the 14th to the 17th chapters of Exodus. 

From this time the history of this wonderful people 
was marked by miracle: and, going forth into the desert 
through those wondrous walls of water, formed by the 
Red Sea, they had no sooner experienced hunger, than 
bread was rained from heaven for them, and the bitter 
spring of the wilderness was sweetened for their sake. 
This spring is yet existing, and is called Ain Howara, 
the bitter well. 

Have you ever thought of the numbers of the children 
of Israel who thus went up out of Egypt? It was such 
an emigration as the world never saw, save on this 
occasion. There were between two and three millions 
of people, twice as many as inhabit the Principality 
of Wales, or more than all the people contained in 
London and its neighbourhood, with all their property, 
goods, utensils, and cattle. No man, with merely human 
resources at his command, could ever have arranged the 
order of their march; but “the Lord went before them 
by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead them the way, and 
by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by 
day and by night” (Exod. 13. 21);—a pillar ever before 
their eyes, high over the camp, where no mortal art 
could have placed it. 

At Rephidim, they were again distressed for want of 
water, and again it was provided for them by miracle. 
The thirst of which they complained, and which they said 
would “kill them,” is best understood by persons who 
have travelled on foot, over a sandy desert, under a burn¬ 
ing sun. The pillar of cloud led the way for Moses and 
the elders, while the former went to smite the rock, in 
Horeb, which is found to be a day’s journey from Re¬ 
phidim, and so situated at the head of a valley, that a 
stream of water from it would come flowing and rushing; 
down to the faint and weary host at Rephidim: but, mean- 

3 


18 


THE ROOK ANI) ITS STORY. 


while, the hindmost of them, “the feeble among them,” 
had been attacked by Amalek, “ who feared not God.” 

Up to this period, we had not heard anything of the 
ancient Arabians, nor of what they felt towards the vast 
host of Israelites making a sudden incursion into their 
country. 

The tribe of Amalek is mentioned in history as in¬ 
habiting the deserts to the south of Palestine, and being 
one of the most famous Arab tribes. They had probably 
heard of the wealth of the Israelites—the spoils they had 
brought out of Egypt; and as Bedouins (who in all ages 
have been famous for committing robberies on merchants 
and travellers) would do now, so these Amalekites then 
resolved to attack Israel. 

There were two descriptions of Arabs,—those who 
dwelt in cities and towns, and those who dwelt in tents. 
Job belonged to the former race, and these Amalekites to 
the latter. He describes his wild brethren in the 24th 
chapter of his book as “ wild asses of the desert, rising be¬ 
times for a prey,” etc. Their desert is still their kingdom: 
no travellers may pass through it without their leave, and 
without purchasing their guidance and protection. Arabs 
lead you up to the pyramids, and convey you to Sinai and 
Petra. You must rest when they suifer you to do so, and 
pass on when they please; and many of them are terrible 
looking fellows, with swarthy complexions, piercing coal- 
black eyes, half-naked figures, enormous swords slung at 
their backs, and rusty matchlocks in their hands. You 
might travel with them for weeks, and never see one of 
them wash his face, or know that he washed or changed 
his clothes. What they live on, it would be difficult to 
say, for they are seldom seen to eat; but they are active 
and vigorous, and can walk thirty miles a-day, for week 
after week in succession. 

Against these wild people the Israelites were directed 
by Moses to go out and fight, while he held up his hands 
at the top of the hill, and prayed. 


WADY MOKATTEB. 


19 


Laborde, a well-known traveller in Arabia Petrea, 
the desert district where all these events occurred, says, 
“We passed through the Wady Mokatteb, which means 
written valley, and beheld the rocks covered with in¬ 
scriptions for the length of an entire league. We after¬ 
wards passed mountains, called Jebel-el Mokatteb, which 
means written mountains; and, as we rode along, per¬ 
ceived during a whole hour, hosts of inscriptions in an 
unknown character, carved in these hard rocks, to a height 
which was ten or twelve feet from the ground : and 
although we had men amongst us who understood the 
Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Syriac, Coptic, Latin, Armenian, 
Turkish, English, Illyrian, German, French, and Bohe¬ 
mian languages, there was not one of us who had the 
slightest knowledge of the characters engraved on these 
rocks, with great labour, in a country where there is 
nothing to be had either to eat or drink.” 



The meaning of these inscriptions was thug, like their 
authorship, unknown. In a book lately published, how- 



20 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


over, called “ The Voice of Israel, from the Rocks of 
Sinai,” the Rev. Charles Forster, an English clergyman, 
and a man of much learning and patient research, has 
suggested that these are the “ rock-tablet records ” of the 
miracles wrought in the wilderness. 

We have now concluded our brief review of the ages 
that elapsed before the giving of the Law ; and with 
something of the reverence felt by the chosen people, let 
us realize the scenery of mount Sinai. 


CHAPTER II. 

MOUNT SINAI.—THE COVENANT, THE GIVING OF THE LAW.-THE 

JEBEL MOUSA.-JEHOVAH.-SEVEN SINS AND THEIR PUNISH¬ 
MENTS.-ELEVEN MONTHS AT SINAI.-THE UNKNOWN THIRTY- 

EIGHT YEARS.—THE LAST YEAR OF THE WANDERING.-MOUNT 

HOR. — THE DEATH OF AARON.-THE LAW AS MADE KNOWN TO 

THE PEOPLE.-FIERY SERPENTS.— THE DEATH OF MOSES. 

SINAI. 

It seems to be the testimony of all modern travellers, 
that the scenery of the mountain range of Sinai is of great 
extent, and of wild and awful grandeur. 

“ I stand,” says Mr. Stephens, “ upon the very peak of 
Sinai, where Moses stood when he talked with the Al¬ 
mighty. Can it be, or is it a mere dream? Can this 
naked rock have been the witness of that great interview 
between man and his Creator, on the morning that was 
ushered in with terrible thunders and lightnings, with 
the thick clouds resting on the mountain’s brow? Yes! 
This is the holy mountain; and not a place on all the 
earth could have been chosen, so fitted for the manifesta- 




MOUNT SINAI. 


2] 


tion of Divine power. I have stood on the summit of the 
giant Etna, and looked over the clouds floating beneath 
it,—upon the bold scenery of Sicily, and the distant 
mountains of Calabria. I have climbed Vesuvius, and 
looked down upon the waves of lava, and the ruined and 
half-recovered cities at its foot: but these are nothing 
compared to the terrific solitude and bleak majesty of 
Sinai.” Another traveller has called it “ a perfect sea of 
desolation. Not a tree, or shrub, or blade of grass is to 
be seen upon the bare and rugged sides of innumerable 
mountains, heaving their naked summits to the skies; 
while the crumbling masses of granite around, and the 
distant view of the Syrian desert, with its boundless waste 
of sands, form the wildest and most dreary, the most ter¬ 
rific and desolate picture the imagination can conceive.” 

It was in this solemn region that God claimed Israel 
for his own, and began to place the nation under a course 
of instruction and discipline, to prepare it for its high 
destiny. Here He called his chosen people into covenant 
relation with Himself. He told them, through Moses, 
that He had borne them on eagles’ wings out of Egypt; 
and that if they would obey and keep his covenant, then 
they should be a peculiar treasure to Him above all peo¬ 
ple—a kingdom of priests and an holy nation. And all 
the people answered together, and said, “ All that the 
Lord hath spoken we will do.” No other such mighty 
shout of promise ever arose from earth to heaven; “ and 
Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord” 
(Exod. 19. 8). 

When God descended to give the Law to his people, 
the Divine glory was revealed from Teman in the east 
of Edom, to Paran or Serbal in the west. It literally 
covered the heavens to this extent. Serbal has five 
principal peaks, which, like the lofty pinnacles of some 
stupendous temple, rise up into the calm, deep blue of 
heaven, lone, silent, and sublime. 

Let us read the description of Moses,—for who could 


22 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


describe like Moses the scenery of Sinai? “The Lord 
came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; He 
shined forth from mount Paran, and He came with ten 
thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery law 
for them. Yea, He loved the people; all his saints are in 
thy hand: and they sat down at thy feet; every one 
shall receive of thy words” (Deut. 33. 2, 3). 

King David refers to this hour, when, 500 years after¬ 
wards, lie says, in his 68th Psalm, verse 17, “ The chariots 
of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: 
the Lord is among them as in Sinai, on the holy mount.” 

We will try and imagine this scene,—one of the most 
awfully sublime in the annals of the world. 

Moses “ had brought the people forth out of the camp 
to meet with'God”: their tents were spread on the skirts 
of Horeb, where its narrow valleys widen gradually into 
high, dreary, undulating plains, hemmed in by low 
ridges of hills. Possibly these camping-grounds may 
have included all the vast plains round about the moun¬ 
tains El Rahah, Seba-iyeh, and El Leja—for two or three 
millions of persons required a great extent of space. Be¬ 
fore them all rose to the height of 2000 feet (being 7000 
above the Red Sea) the Jebel Mousa, with its shattered 
pyramidal peak, like a mighty pulpit, fenced off by a 
range of sharp, upheaving crags, 200 feet in height, and 
forming an almost impassable barrier to the Mount of 
God itself, though Moses had likewise “ set bourds about 
it, to sanctify it.” 

While the people stood thus “ at the nether part of the 
mount,” let us imagine the effulgence reflected from the 
whole of the Arabian desert, and listen to the sounds of 
the trumpet, “ exceeding loud,” echoing round all the 
mountains, preparing the way for the mighty angel- 
voices of the holy myriads uttering the Law; and then 
let us remember who was this Jehovah upon Sinai,—the 
Jehovah of the Jewish Church in the wilderness. The 
martyr Stephen tells us, just before his death, that the 


SEVEN SINS AND THEIR PUNISHMENTS. 23 

angel which spake to Moses in mount Sinai was none 
other than the angel of the burning bush—the angel of 
the Lord, who had said of Himself, “ I am the God of thy 
fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the 
God of Jacob,” before whom Moses “ trembled and durst 
not behold” (Acts 7. 32); and also none other than the 
Saviour, the afterwards crucified Redeemer of the world, 
whose voice (says Paul, Heb. 12. 26) “ then shook the 
earth: but now He hath promised, Yet once more I 
shake not the earth only, but also heaven.” 

Dear young friends, when you have thought of Jesus 
taking upon Him the form of a servant, have you also 
thought of that Jesus as one and the same with the awful 
Jehovah of Sinai? At both times it is said of Him, “yet 
He loved the people” (Deut. 33. 3), and “for his great 
love wherewith He loved us” (Eph. 2. 4). 

It is good to go back in thought to Sinai, and to 
realize that the Great God has actually spoken with men 
upon the earth. 

Many of the travellers who have visited these regions 
have enjoyed the privilege of opening their Bibles and 
reading, on the summits of Sinai and Iioreb, the ac¬ 
counts which Moses gives, in the very scenes which they 
concern. 

SEVEN SINS AND THEIR PUNISHMENTS ; OR, 

THE WILDERNESS LIFE. 

When God had thus spoken, in majesty and fire, to the 
ear and eye of the favoured people, He did not intend the 
impression of that day to pass away: He had given them 
a Revelation,—a Law that was to separate them from all 
other people; and his words to them were to endure for 
ever. 

We have not undertaken the task of reviewing the 
whole history of Israel, except as concerns one particular, 
which we wish you especially to observe. 


24 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


From the time that they became, through Moses, the 
keepers of the oracles of God, they were judged by them , 
and they were expected to live by them; they became 
The Church of the Book. 

They had subscribed to the covenant; they had said, 
“ All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.” They 
were “under the Law”; and whenever they broke their 
promise, they incurred punishment and suffering, and 
this they continually did. 

They remained at their station in Horeb a few days 
longer than eleven months. During this time, Jehovah 
made them fully understand that He was their King, and 
He established the regular service of his royal court by 
the priests and Levites. He set apart more than a 
fiftieth portion of the whole nation to this office. They 
were to receive his Law from Moses, to copy it, and to 
read it to the people,—not only the Ten Commandments, 
as written by the finger of God upon the two tables of 
stone, but the Book of the Covenant also, which Moses 
had written (Exod. 24. 4), and read in the audience of the 
people for the first time, “ by the altar under the hill.” 

During these eleven months, their form of govern- 
ment in all things was appointed, their institutions estab¬ 
lished, and the Tabernacle fashioned and set up “ accord¬ 
ing to the pattern shown to Moses in the mount,” for the 
house or palace of their Divine King, who always visibly 
dwelt among them in the glory that was between the 
cherubim. 

The same period witnessed their breach of + he first 
Commandment, “ Thou shalt have none other gods but 
me,” in the worship of the golden calf, and its punish¬ 
ment in the ueath of 3000 among the people. 

The second sin was committed by the two disobedient 
priests who offered the strange fire, and they also were 
consumed. 

The third transgression was against the third Command¬ 
ment : the son of an Egyptian father “ blasphemed the 


SEVEN SINS AND THEIR PUNISHMENTS. 25 

Name, and cursed.” He was brought without the camp, 
and stoned to death. 

The fourth concerned murmuring about the manna, 
of which they began to get tired. In this case, the 
punishment was given by granting their desire : they 
were to have flesh for a whole month, which, beginning 
to eat greedily and ravenously, a great number of them 
died, and were buried on the spot. 

The fifth was upon Miriam, who was smitten with 
leprosy, for bearing false witness against her brother 
Moses. It is said, concerning this, that “ the Lord 
heard.” 

The sixth sin was that of the unfaithful spies: they 
went up in the second year of the wandering to see the 
land of Palestine, and in consequence of their search, dis¬ 
couraged the people. They brought back glorious grapes 
from it, but they said the men of the land were giants, 
and that they should not be able to go up against them. 

The Syrian vine is still famous for the size of its 
clusters. There is one of these vines in the grounds of 
the Duke of Portland, at Welbeck, near Worksop, from 
which a cluster of grapes was gathered, in 1819, weigh¬ 
ing nineteen pounds ; and intelligent travellers aver, that 
those who have only seen the vines in France and Italy, 
can have no just idea of the size to which the clusters 
attain in Syria. 

The evil part of their report was not probably in itself 
incorrect, that they had seen people of great stature; for 
Moses verifies their statement in speaking of the “Ana- 
kim, great and tall,” and of other old gigantic tribes, with 
a reference to the sons of Anak; and in the prophecy of 
Amos it is said (Amos 2. 9), “ yet destroyed I the Amo- 
rite before them, whose height was like the height of the 
cedars, and who was strong as the oaks.” Goliath, whom 
David slew, was a son of Anak ; his stature may be taken 
at about nine feet: but they forgot that He who had 
dried up the Red Sea before them, and had overcome the 


26 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Egyptians with his mighty plagues,—if his pillar of 
cloud and fire had pointed them towards the high-walled 
cities of the tall Anakim,—would have given them vic¬ 
tory in Palestine also ; but, as Moses afterwards says to 
them (Deut. 1. 32), “ In this thing ye did not believe 
the Lord your God.” 

The most formidable conspiracy against the authority 
of Moses and Aaron took place at Kadesh, soon after the 
doom of forty years’ wandering had been pronounced. 
They, or rather their sons, returned to this Kadesh only 
after a period of thirty-eight years, during which we know 
nothing minutely of their proceedings. All that has been 
related, the present conspiracy included, which makes 
the seventh occasion of their punishment, occurred during 
the first two years after their leaving Egypt. Moses says, 
(Deut. 2. 14), “And the space in which we came from 
Kadesh-Barnea, until we were come over the brook of 
Zered was thirty and eight years ; until all the genera¬ 
tion of the men of war were wasted out from among the 
host, as the Lord sware unto them.” The brook Zered 
enters the Dead Sea near the southern end; and when 
that was crossed, they had ended their long pilgrimage, 
and entered into a cultivated and settled country. The 
conspiracy at Kadesh (Num. 16) was very bold. It arose 
among the children of Reuben, the elder tribe, and the 
children of Levi, the priestly tribe. Their encampments 
were side by side, at the south of the Tabernacle, and 
they seem to have indulged an envious spirit against 
Moses and Aaron, until at length their chiefs gathered 
themselves together, and said to these two men ordained 
of God, “ Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the 
congregation are holy, and the Lord is among them.” 

The Lord was among them, however, to punish this 
desire of power which did not belong to them, and the 
earth opened upon Korah, Dathan, and Abiram ; and as 
they and all they had went down into the pit, all Israel 
fled at the cry of them, while at the same time 250 per- 


THE DEATH OF AARON. 


27 


sons more were consumed by fire: and because at this the 
people murmured, a plague raged on the morrow among 
them, by which 14,700 died, besides those that died the 
day before with Korah. 

Thus you see many lives were lost in the repeated re¬ 
bellions of the people. They had multiplied rapidly in 
Egypt, but they were about 2000 less in number when 
about to enter the Promised Land. The new generation, 
though for so many years trained and tried, murmured 
like their fathers for the want of water, on their return to 
Kadesh, where Miriam died and was buried; and Moses 
does not seem to have been prepared to expect such con¬ 
duct from them , but was more irritated than on any former 
occasion. Even he, as David tells us, spake unadvisedly 
with his lips,—and, striking the rock instead of speaking 
to it (must it not have been struck with the rod which 
blossomed, taken from before the Lord?), said angrily, 
“ Hear now, ye rebels! Must we fetch you water out of 
this rock?” For this impatience, he and Aaron, who 
appears to have shared in his sin, which God Himself 
says was unbelief,—“ because ye believed me not, to 
sanctify me before the people,”— even these two great 
leaders were not permitted to guide Israel into the Pro¬ 
mised Land. 

Aaron went up first into mount Hor to die, from whose 
craggy summits may be seen on one side the wilderness 
in which the people, had wandered, and from the other 
the mountains of Palestine, on which, doubtless, Aaron 
cast his last look. 

The American traveller, Mr. Stephens, visited mount 
Hor, and thus describes it: “The mountain is bare and 
rugged to its very summit, without even a tree or a bush 
growing on its sterile sides.” He says, “If I had never 
stood on the summit of Sinai, I should say, that nothing 
could exceed the desolation of the view from mount Hor, 
—the mighty natural pyramid, on the top of which the 
high-priest of Israel was buried.” 


28 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Amid his other duties ordained by God, Aaron had, 
doubtless, not neglected that of copying the Law, and 
reading it to the people. This was especially ordered to 
be done for eight days together, once in every seven 
years; but we know that during the training of Israel in 
the wilderness, this was not all they heard or knew of the 
Law; for Moses says to them (Deut. 30. 11-14), “The 
commandment which is written in this book of the Law 
is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. It is not in 
heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to 
heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it and do 
it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, 
Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, 
that we may hear it and do it ? But the word is very 
nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou 
mayest do it.” 

“ In thy mouth” seems to signify, that they learned 
portions of it. Moses ordered the Levites to write his 
last noble song, and to teach it to the children of 
Israel ,— u Put it in their mouths , that this song may be a 
witness for me against the children of Israel, that when 
many evils and troubles are befallen them, this song 
shall testify against them as a witness; for it shall not be 
forgotten out of the mouths of their seed” (Deut. 31. 
19, 21). If an Israelite was in doubt as to any ordinance 
or duty, he was to inquire of the priest, the Levite, who 
was also the judge, and would show him the sentence of 
judgment (Deut. 17. 9), as written by Moses. Any one 
of the people who was able, might write a copy of the 
Law for himself; but the Levites were in general the 
learned class among this pastoral people, and were not 
only to make, but to give away, correct copies of it; and 
probably they went about from tent to tent (as the Scrip¬ 
ture-reader does now from house to house), to read the 
Law to each family. It is always assumed that the people 
“knew it”; and in the book of Deuteronomy, Moses 
threw its precepts into a new form, for the generation 


FIERY SERPENTS. 29 

which had been born since the entrance to the wilder¬ 
ness. 

This book of Deuteronomy appears to have been writ¬ 
ten by Moses, in the plains of Moab, a short time before 
his death, 1451 b.c. : his death itself, as recorded in the 
34th chapter, was probably added by his successor, Joshua; 
and the last four verses of that chapter, which concern 
Joshua, were, it is most likely, written by Ezra, when he 
collected the books of the Old Testament together. 

A little before the repeating of the Law, Moses had 
held up to the suffering people the serpent of brass upon a 
pole, that every one who was bitten, when he looked upon 
it, might live (Num. 21. 9),—the type, as our Lord tells 
us (John 3. 14, 15), of his own lifting up on the cross, 
"that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but 
have eternal life.” That shore of the Eed Sea, where the 
Israelites were bitten, is still remarkable for abounding in 
serpents, as indeed the wilderness does generally. In 
Deut. 8. 15, Moses calls it "a great and terrible wilder¬ 
ness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and 
drought ”; yet we never hear of the people being bitten 
and killed by them till now. They had been marvellously 
protected from this, as from other dangers of the way; 
and the protection was only now withdrawn, on account 
of their oft-repeated sin of murmuring. 

They had, however, nearly finished their course in 
the wilderness, and would not much longer murmur 
against their great leader, for he was about to ascend 
mount Nebo, and to die! He who had so long brought 
the word of the Lord to Israel, was to be seen by them 
no more; and he left them saying, “ Secret things belong 
to God; but those things which are revealed belong unto 
us, and to our children for ever, that we may do all the 
words of the Law” (Deut. 29. 29). 

Yes! he left behind him the revealed and written will 
of God for that people, besides the wonderful book of 
Job. 


30 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Do you think that the very roll that Moses left is 
come down to us?—that would be impossible. That very 
roll is supposed to have perished at the destruction of 
Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, B.C. 586; if so, it was 
treasured and in existence for eight centuries and a half. 
Moses commanded the Levites to put it in the side of the 
ark of the covenant, “ for a witness against the people.” 
The final covenant made with the people in the plains of 
Moab, with the last lofty song and eloquent prophecy, 
seems to have been written on a separate skin ; and Dr. 
Adam Clarke thinks there is every reason to believe that 
this was the portion lost and found in the reign of Josiah, 
800 years after it was written. This was called an auto¬ 
graph copy, which means the very one that Moses wrote. 
It had been lost in the reigns of the wicked kings that 
went before Josiah, who was a reforming king; and when 
he set himself to repair the House of the Lord his God, 
and brought hewn-stone and timber to repair the floors 
which the kings of Judah had destroyed, Hilkiah, the 
priest, found a book of the Law of the Lord by the hand 
of Moses, and gave it to the king (2 Chron. 34. 14). 
What he did with it, we must leave till a further period 
of the history, for we must go up with Moses into mount 
Nebo, where he died. 

Having ordered the elders of Israel, on the day that 
they should pass over Jordan, to set up great stones, and 
plaister them with plaister, and themselves to write upon 
them all the words of the Law, very plainly (Deut. 27. 2), 
he ascended the mount, the highest peak in the Abarim 
range, which joins the Dead Sea to mount Seir. No 
traveller seems to have ascended or given any description 
of it, except that it is a barren mountain, on whose 
summit may be perceived a heap of stones overshadowed 
by a tall pistachio tree. 

He went up, as he had often done before, to be alone 
with God, but to return to men no more. If our Saviour 
Himself had not told us, that the greatest man born of 


THE DEATH OF MOSES. 


31 


woman was his own forerunner, John the Baptist, we 
should have given this meed to Moses, who, denying his 
personal desire, died without any regret of his own—all 
his thoughts fixed, as they had ever been, on the welfare 
of his people. There was no thought of self—“ only let 
Jehovan, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man 
over the congregation, that they be not as sheep which 
have no shepherd ”—and then he was ready. Farewell, 
then, to Moses ascending mount Nebo—his eye not dim, 
nor his natural force abated, though he had borne the 
burden of 120 years. 

He had looked upon all Egypt’s glory. He had seen 
a nation fall before him in the wilderness; he had been 
made the means of giving God’s revelation to earth; and 
now he himself was about to pass into the fuller revela¬ 
tions of heaven. 

He was not sinless; he was not to be worshipped; and 
lest he should have been (for never was human being 
so visibly endued with Divine power), God marked his 
only recorded sin with punishment,—the great punish¬ 
ment of not entering the Promised Land; but that cir¬ 
cumstance was employed as a type, that the Law , which 
he personified, cannot conduct us into the heavenly 
Canaan. Joshua, who took possession, is, as his name 
signifies, the type of Jesus, through whom only is ob¬ 
tained the “abundant entrance” “ by grace and not by 
works.” 


32 


CHAPTER III. 

ENTRANCE TO THE LAND.-JOSHUA.-THE CANAANITES.-JOSHUA’S 

VICTORIES.-EBAL AND GERIZIM.—THE JUDGES.-THE SIX SER¬ 
VITUDES.-THE TIMES OF THE KINGS.-DAVID.-SOLOMON.-DIVI¬ 
SION OF THE KINGDOM.-SHISHAK.-THE FROPHETS, THEIR ROLLS. 

-TABLE OF PROPHETS.-THE LOST TEN TRIBES.-THE LOST ROLL, 

THE BURNT ROLL.-CAPTIVITY AND RETURN.-EZRA’S MINISTRY. 

-REVIEW OF THE HISTORY AND PROPHECIES CONCERNING THE 

FALL OF ISRAEL, NINEVEH, JUDAH, TYRE, PETRA, THEBES, AND 
BABYLON. 


The historical books of Scripture, from Joshua to Esther, 
contain the history of the Jewish nation from their first 
settlement in the Promised Land to their return thither, 
after seventy years’ captivity in Babylon, comprising a 
period of about a thousand years. 

Why is it that this chapter in your “Jubilee Book” 
must be mainly taken up with the history of this nation 
alone, while other great nations existed at that time in 
the world? Will not Sinai and the wilderness have 
taught you to answer, “ Because through this nation, and 
none other, came down to us during this thousand years 
the written revelation from God ” ? 

We shall divide this thousand years into three periods. 

I. The period of Joshua and the Judges, of 355 years. 

II. The period of the Kings, comprising 507 years. III. 
The Babylonian captivity and return, till Ezra republishes 
the Law and the Prophets, comprising 150 years. 

THE ENTRANCE TO THE LAND. 

You know that this was marked by the same miracle 
as their coining up out of Egypt. They might have pro- 


THE ENTRANCE TO THE LAND. 33 

ceeded towards the Promised Land without crossing the 
Red Sea at all; and they might have crossed the Jordan 
where it was a brook, near its source; hut they were 
ordered to cross its full stream, and then its waters were 
heaped up, like those of the Red Sea, in order that the 
nations they were going to conquer might perceive their 
mission from God; and it is said, “ neither was there 
spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel.” 

The next event was the celebration of the passover—a 
new observance to most of the people, the generation who 
had been educated in the free, pure air of the wilderness, 
while their fathers were dying out for their unbelief. 

The passover had been observed only once in Egypt, 
and once again at Sinai, and this was its third celebration. 

On the next morning, the manna ceased to fall: the 
“ old corn” of the Promised Land supplied its place. 

To Joshua, the new leader of Israel and successor to 
Moses, God promised help, on these conditions: “ As I 
was with Moses, so I will be with thee; only observe to 
do according to all the Law which Moses my servant com¬ 
manded thee. This book of the Law shall not depart out 
of thy mouth: thou shalt meditate therein day and night; 
then shalt thou make thy way prosperous.” 

Each of these two great leaders of Israel was the 
guardian and student of the written revelation. Each 
read it to the people, and caused them to act upon it. 
Joshua lived thirty-two years after taking them into the 
land; and as he died at 110, he must have known for 
thirty-eight years what was the bondage of Egypt, and 
must have seen all, except Caleb, die around him in the 
wilderness: and he was now appointed, as the conquer¬ 
ing general of the people with whom God had made a 
covenant, to destroy every other league and covenant 
existing among the Canaanitish nations. Let us further 
examine who the Canaanites were. 

There was a race among these heathen people, called 
the Anakim, or the Rephaim. The spies of Israel said 


34 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


they were a great and haughty people, with cities fenced 
up to the skies (Deut. 9. 1, 2); and that they made them 
feel “ as grasshoppers.” 

The Anakim settlements lay along the mountain range 
which extends through the land of Palestine; and it seems 
that, from superior size and wisdom too, they were the 
masters of another race of people, called the Amorites,— 
a degraded nation, and very wicked, and whose “ iniquity 
was full ” at the time that Israel entered the land. 

The Rephaim had military outposts and fortresses in 
strong positions among the mountains. They had even 
a city, Kirjath-sepher, or the book-city, the city of letters, 
or of archives. Joshua conquered it, and probably did 
not think its records worth keeping, so they are all lost— 
not come down to us. We know nothing of these “ tall ” 
and “ haughty ” rulers of old time, but what is said of 
them in the Bible, and, strange to say, what is carved 
and written about them on the old Egyptian temple of 
Karnak. 

Yes! they are there,—these men of “ Onk” or Anak. 
They are supposed to have been the shepherd-kings who 
once conquered Egypt; and in the reign of Rameses III., 
Egypt conquered them in their own land. She never re¬ 
cords her own defeats, but she has described her conquests 
over the Rephaim as ranging through three centuries. 

Even in the early days of these Rephaim, Shalem (the 
same as Jerusalem) was the metropolis of Palestine; 
whence came Melchizedek to meet Abraham after his 
defence of Lot (see Gen. 14). As, therefore, Melchizedek 
is said to be the priest of the Most High God, it might 
be concluded that these sons of Anak once held the true 
religion, like the ancient Arabians. 

In the time of Joshua, they still maintained their 
supremacy; but it was then the supremacy of force. 
The Philistines were one of their branches, occupying 
the southern sea-side of the land. 

Another of their ancient cities, named on Karnak, was 


EBAL AND GERIZIM. 


35 


Hebron, or Arba, where Abraham lived, died, and was 
buried. This city “was built seven years before Zoan, 
in Egypt” (Num. 13. 22).* 

The victories of Joshua comprise three distinct series 
of events. Eirst, his campaign against the Amorite 
league, in which he swept round the mountain of Judah, 
returning by Hebron to Gilgal. Secondly, the campaign 
against the northern Canaanites,—“Joshua made war a 
long time with all those kings” (Josh. 11. 18). Einally, 
the general statements of particular expeditions against 
those tall Anakim, till destroyed in their cities and their 
forts,—“there were none of the Anakim left in all the 
land of the children of Israel,” only the Philistines in 
Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod; and then Joshua took the 
w r hole land and gave it for an inheritance unto Israel by 
their tribes (Josh. 11. 22). Balaam the son of Beor had 
been slain in this w r ar (Josh. 13. 22) : you can read the 
history of Balaam looking down upon Israel from the 
mountains of Moab, and blessing them in spite of himself 
(Num. chapters 22, 23, 24). 

Although Moses had never seen the Promised Land, 
he had chosen by inspiration the most fitting site for the 
fresh promulgation of the Law to the people, after they 
should have passed the Jordan, on the blasted Ebal, 
and the fair and fertile Gerizim. The ark, attended by 
the priests, remained in the valley by which the twin 
mounts are separated. Up each side of either mountain 
stood the thousands of Israel, the chiefs, the judges, the 
Levites, the women, the children, and the stranger,—six 
tribes pronouncing the curses from the barren Ebal,— 
six uttering the blessings from the pleasant Gerizim; 
and as each clause of curse and blessing was pronounced, 
there rose, with one vast voice rushing from the living hills, 
the “Amen” of the consenting, multitude (Josh. 8. 33). 


* This is one of the many notices of facts, in the history of the old 
world, which are to be met with incidentally in the books of Moses. 


36 


THE BOOK AND ITS STOUT. 


When Joshua “ went the way of all the earth”—as he 
himself says—Israel was no more governed by one leader. 
He left the state on its proper and fixed foundations, with 
the Lord at its head as its Divine King abiding among 
them in his tabernacle, which had now been set up at 
Shiloh, twenty-five miles north of Jerusalem, and it con¬ 
tinued in this city for 450 years. 

THE JUDGES. 

From the time of Joshua to that of Eli and Samuel, 
comprises a period of 355 years, and this was called the 
times of the judges, or elders, of Israel. This body had 
been in existence from the time the people were in 
bondage, in Egypt (see Exod. 3. 16). Six were chosen 
from each tribe, making seventy-two senators; and on 
these fell the government of the chief cities and towns. 
In the wilderness, .these elders had sometimes prophesied 
(Num. 11. 25), and they were the expounders of the Law 
of Moses. 

The book of Judges forms the eighth book of Holy 
Scripture, reckoning Job as so early written. Its chapters 
chiefly record the instances in which Israel forsook the 
Divine Law, and were in consequence punished. 

When, by marrying heathen wives, they were led into 
idolatry, the Lord withdrew his protection from them, 
and they were oppressed by some neighbouring state, 
more or less severely, until they were humbled, and 
implored the mercy of their own offended King; and 
ihen He heard them, raising them up time after time 
deliverers, such as Ehud, Barak, Gideon, Jephthah, and 
Samson, when the foreign yoke was broken from their 
necks for awhile, until, sinning again, they were again 
and again punished; but it was always for the forsaking 
of the Law of the Lord. 

The book of Judges, however, gives no minute records 
of the periods when they did not break the Law, and 


THE SIX SERVITUDES. 


37 


when the land enjoyed peace and safety: these periods 
are often passed over in a single verse. 

Dr. Graves, who has examined this subject, observes, 
that out of the 450 years under the judges, there were 
not less than 377 years during which the authority of the 
Law of Moses was acknowledged in Israel;—a beautiful 
picture of which times of peace is to be found in the 
book of Ruth. 

The Jewish writers tell us, that in these good times 
the Levites went much about the country as teachers of 
the Law. Education among the Hebrews chiefly con¬ 
sisted in being taught to read the Law, and listening to 
those who could expound it. 

The priests were to offer sacrifices for sin, and not to 
teach: the Levites were to assist the priests in some por¬ 
tions of their duty, but were to teach and not to sacrifice. 

It appears that the Israelites endured six successive 
periods of servitude during the times of the judges: 

1st, under the King of Mesopotamia, 8 years. 


2nd, under the Moabites . .18 years. 

3rd, under the Canaanites . . 20 years. 

4th, under the Midianites . . 7 years. 

5th, under the Ammonites . 18 years. 

6th, under the Philistines . . 40 years. 


During the twenty succeeding years, the people, though 
not under a foreign yoke, were perhaps under a worse 
bondage than any before,—“every man doing that which 
was right in his own eyes.” 

THE TIMES OF THE KINGS. 

After their last deliverance by the Prophet Samuel, 
who ruled over the nation for twenty peaceful years, and 
“caused them once more to serve the Lord only,” the 
chief men of the nation, not wishing Samuel’s sons to 
succeed him, “who walked not in his ways,” demanded 
a king. 


38 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Three kings in succession were given to them, who 
each reigned 40 years— 

Saul. David. Solomon. 

We have not space to enter into the details of their several 
reigns, but must remark, in passing, the portions which 
the two latter added to the books of Scripture. It is 
believed that the Prophet Samuel compiled the books 
of Judges and of Kuth, and commenced the first book 
of Samuel, the latter part of which and the second book 
were written by succeeding prophets, probably Nathan 
and Gad. 

The books of Kings and Chronicles were compiled 
from the national records by various prophets and scribes, 
and were, it is most likely, completed by Ezra, when he 
collected them together, 500 years afterwards. 

King David wrote most of the Psalms, and King 
Solomon most of the Proverbs, with the books of the 
Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes. 

Before Moses bade farewell to the people in the wilder¬ 
ness, he had foreseen that they would desire a king at 
some future day, and had thus provided that he should 
be an enlightened king. 

When he sat upon his throne, he was to write him a 
copy of the Law in a book, out of that which is before 
the priests, the Levites. He was to do this for himself 
and he was to read in it all the days of his life. It would 
scarcely seem that Saul kept this law, but King David 
did; and, Oh how he loved it! 

Who does not cherish the memory of David the poet- 
king,—“the man after God’s own heart”? Inspired 
alike as prophet and historian, he summed up the 
history of his wonderful people in many a noble psalm 
that has commanded the world’s sympathies for 3000 
years. Some of his songs were composed for the Jewish 
festivals, the passover, the feast of tabernacles, etc. Some 
are war-songs, some songs of thanksgiving. We can 
find an appropriate psalm for almost every possible state 


THE DIVISION OF THE KINGDOM. 39 

of mind and feeling; but, after all, what is there so 
beautiful as the longest psalm, the 119th —the Bible 
Psalm —in which almost every one of the 176 verses 
speaks with love and joy of the word of God! That is 
David’s contribution to this jubilee year; and, if we were 
living on the earth now, would he not chant it to his own 
harp most gloriously? 

Have you noticed that nearly every verse, under the dif¬ 
ferent names of testimonies, precepts, statutes, command¬ 
ments, ordinances, judgments, law, refers to the Bible?— 
and David’s Bible comprised only the five books of Moses, 
Job, Joshua, Judges, and Kuth, and the history of Israel 
by Samuel, to which, it may be, the king added some of 
his own psalms. 

There is no time to dwell on the reigns of David and 
Solomon, or to picture to ourselves the high and palmy 
state of Judea for those eighty years. The kings of Israel 
possessed great stores of the precious metals. When Solo¬ 
mon built the Temple, which was to stand in the stead of 
the Tabernacle, the gold consumed in overlaying its inside 
would have made three millions of our money. This 
temple is supposed to have been built upon the very spot 
where Abraham had offered Isaac; and when Solomon 
and all his people were assembled for the first time to 
dedicate it to Jehovah, while the Levites in pure white 
robes lifted up their voices with the trumpets and the 
cymbals, then the house was filled with a cloud, so that 
the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the 
cloud, for the glory of the Lord had filled the House of 
the Lord. Thus was God visibly present among this 
favoured people. 

THE DIVISION OF THE KINGDOM. 

This took place under Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, 
who at first reigned righteously, but afterwards fell into 
idolatry, and Jerusalem with him. Jerusalem was taken 
and spoiled by Shishak king of Egypt; and here again 


40 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


we must turn to the great old books of stone in the 
temple of Karnak, first reading 2 Chron. 12, and 1 Kings 
14. 25,—narratives which, though they would need no 
testimony from the heathen to their truth, are yet sur¬ 
prisingly confirmed by the following sculptures. 

You have the privilege to live in an age, when, if you 
hear persons expressing doubts as to the truth of the Bible, 
you may ask them if they have read or heard of God’s 
great stone books , which are unanswerable, and which He 
has laid up in their dead languages 
for so many centuries, and is now 
permitting to be understood even 
by children. 

In the year 1828, the French stu¬ 
dent, Champollion, on his passage 
down the blile, landed at Karnak, 
and pointed out the accompanying 
figure, one of sixty-three prisoners 
presented to Sheshonk by his god 
Amunra. 

The turreted oval enclosing the 
name means that it is a walled city. 
Shishak is depicted as a gigantic 
figure holding a captive by the hair 
of the head, with one hand, which 
he is going to strike off with the 
other: there are five rows of such 
captives as these, with features evi¬ 
dently Jewish. 




JUDaH M E LeK Kah. 


King or the Country of Judah. 


Our space forbids our even giving you a list of the 
names of the kings of the two kingdoms, which, from 




THE PROPHETS. 


41 


Kehoboam’s time, were set up among the Israelites, during 
the next hundred years after the conquest by Shishak. 
We must merely observe, that this national division 
proved a most disastrous event for them, and pass on to 
what chiefly concerns us,—to the class of persons who 
further added to the inspired books, for we must examine 
their character, and the nature of their teaching. 

THE PROPHETS. 

The prophets were messengers sent of God, and in¬ 
spired to declare his will to this nation, who foretold 
events long before they came to pass. Enoch, Noah, 
Jacob, and Moses, had delivered many prophecies. 
After the times of the judges, young men were especially 
trained as prophets, in schools; and from this class gene¬ 
rally, but not always, did the Holy Spirit select those 
few, who were to be miraculously inspired. These were 
also called seers, or men of God. 

This inspiration was a wonderful thing. The men to 
whom it was vouchsafed felt it come upon them as a 
power which they could not withstand. It took posses¬ 
sion of them, filled them, excited them, bore them along, 
taught them, enabled them to speak words which they 
could not have uttered at any other time-. “ The Spirit 
of God,” it is said, “ was upon them,” and their spirits 
felt like a vessel impelled before the wind. This was 
the inspiration vouchsafed to the higher class of prophets, 
as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and also to those who 
were called the minor prophets, because they uttered 
short though great prophecies. The scribes wrote all 
these latter together on one roll, lest any of them should 
be lost. 

But prophets, in general, during the times of the kings, 
were the philosophers, divines, and guides of the nation. 
They stood as the bulwarks of religion against the im¬ 
piety of princes; and although highly esteemed by the 


42 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


pious kings, they were very poor men, and greatly exposed 
to persecution. 

They generally lived in some retired country place, 
and spent their time in prayer, study, and manual labour. 
Elisha quitted his plough, when Elijah called him to be 
a prophet. Amos was a herdsman, and a gatherer of 
sycamore-fruit (Amos 7. 14). The sons of the prophets 
built their own dwellings, for which they cut down the 
timber (2 Kings 6. 1). 

They were dressed very singularly: Elijah was clothed 
with skins, and wore a leather girdle: Isaiah wore sack¬ 
cloth. Their habits were simple and their food plain. 

The predictions of the earliest prophets are inserted in 
the historical books, together with their fulfilment,—such 
as those of Elijah, Elisha, Jehu, and Micaiah. 

But Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, were directed to 
write their prophecies in a roll, as well as to utter them 
in some public place where all might hear. The roll 
was in many cases affixed to the gate of the temple, 
where all might read it; and they often accompanied 
their message by some significant action on their own 
part. Jeremiah made a yoke and put it on his neck, to 
foretel the captivity of Babylon. Isaiah walked barefoot, 
and stripped off his rough prophet’s garment to show 
what w r as coming on Egypt. 

When the prophecy was not 
to be fulfilled for ages, they 
were commanded to seal it up, 
“it being requisite that the 
originals,” says Mr. Horne, 
“ should be compared with 
the event when it occurred.” 
It seems to have been a cus¬ 
tom for the prophets to de¬ 
posit their writings in the 
temple, and lay them up be¬ 
fore the Lord. There is a 









TtfE LOST TEN TRIBES. 


43 


belief among the Jews that all the sacred books were 
placed in the side of the ark. On the preceding page 
we have given you a picture of the cases in which written 
roils were generally kept in this age, and long after it. 

The Paragraph Bible published by the Tract Society 
will now supply us with a table (see page 44) of the 
reigns of the kings, in which the sixteen prophets who 
wrote the separate books of Holy Scripture lived and 
wrote. The thick black lines present at once to the eye 
the length of the prophet’s life. 

Before reading each prophecy, you should read the 
reign of the king in which it was delivered, given in the 
references at the bottom of the page. 

The idolatrous kings were always punished for the 
forsaking of the Law, while those who observed the Law 
prospered. The kingdom rose or fell according to that 
rule; and this renders the history of the Jewish people 
especially interesting and instructive. 

The following table shows you at a glance that the 
kingdom of Israel, comprising ten of the tribes, came to 
an end 194 years before the kingdom of Judah. The 
exceeding wickedness of Israel caused God to send them 
into captivity among the Assyrians, B. C. 730. 

They are spoken of as the lost ten tribes; and thus 
was Hosea’s prophecy fulfilled,—“they shall be called 
Lo - ammi , that is, not my people.” But it is certain that 
God knows where their descendants are, and in his own 
time will recover the lost, and re-unite them with Judah, 
under one Head, even Christ (see Ezek. 37. 21-28). 

The portion of Palestine inhabited by the ten tribes was 
called Samaria ; the King of Assyria re-peopled this dis¬ 
trict from Babylon, Cuth, Ava, etc., and these people, 
joined with the remnant of the Israelites, were called 
Samaritans. We hear of them in the time of our Lord, 
and that “ the Jews had no dealings with them.” They 
had asked to be allowed to assist in the re-building of the* 
temple after the captivity, and, on being refused, became 
inveterate enemies to the work, and built a temple of 


TABULAE VIEW OF THE PEOPHETS, 


SHOWING THE PERIODS DURING WHICH IT IS SUPPOSED THEIR PROPHECIES 


WERE DELIVERED. 


!- 

) 

{ Kings of 
Judah. 

B. C. 

Isaiah. 

w 

< 

53 

w 

X 

K 

•-0 

►3 

M 

M 

a 

w 

N 

w 

•4 

M 

>- 

Z 

< 

P 

< 

w 

m 

0 

W 

>4 

w 

0 

1 Amos. 

Obadiah. 

m 

< 

z 

0 

H 

<5 

0 

a 

Nahum. 

M 

£> 

9 

-5 

a 

< 

H 

Zephaniah. 

Hagqai. 

Zehcariah. 

Malachi. 

Kings of 

Israel. 

840- 

a Amaziah, 839 






1 












0 Jeroboam II. 

825 

t$ZO- 



















olV 

b Uzziah, 810 






j 



















1 

f 












790- 








6 











Interregnum, 

784 






- 













p Menahem, 772 j 

i(U .- 

700 

- 

















q Pekahiah, 761 j 

c Jot ham, 758 





- 













rPekah, 759 ! 

d Ahaz, 742 

,n*t\ _, 

— 

















730 
















Anarchy, 739 

e Hezekiah, 727 
720 

















t Hoshea, 730 

710 











- — 




1 

! 

O 

P 

T3 

«“► 

O 

Mf 

Ml 

n 

«■< 

E 

g 

** 

M* 

9 

C* 

d 

H 0 

-4 2. 

5* 

r fi 

0 

< 

•1 

O 

£ 2 

cr 

. ^ 

^ Si ? 

C-, * 

9 > 

P CO 

3. 

p 

J 1 

* Malachi, 
between 

436 and 420. 

-- 

700 












1 

t 




/ Manasseh, 698 
690 















1 

6S0 

















670 

















660 






JL 











U50 



1 


l 

.1 











g Amon, 643 
640 

















h Josiah, 641 
630 

















620 - 













— 




t Jehoahaz, 610 
610 
















k Jehoiakim, 610 

















l Jeconiah, 599 
590 



- 

- 














in Dest. of Je¬ 
rusalem, 588 







1 

























































510 
















n Zerubbabel,536 
S30 































520 

















51ft 














r 

r 


















* 


The date after each king’s name indicates the commencement of his reign.—Joel is placed twice, as it is 

doubtful at which period he lived. 


a 2 Ki. 14; 2 Ch. 25. 
b 2 Ki. 14. 21; 2 Ch. 26. 1. 

C 2 Ki. 15. 32; 2 Ch. 27. 
d 2 Ki. 16. 1; 2 Ch. 28. 
e 2 Ki. 18. 19; 2 Ch. 29; Is. 36. 37. 38. 
/ 2 Ki.20. 1; 2 Ch 33 


g 2 Ki. 21. 19; 2 Ch. 33. 21. 
h 2 Ki. 22. 1; 2 Ch. 34. 1. 
t 2 Ki. 23. 31. 
k 2 Ki. 23. 36; 9 Ch. 3fl. 5. 
i 2 Ki. 24. 8; 2 Ch. 36. 9. 
m 2 Ki 25; 2 Ch. 36. 17 


n Ezra 3. 4, 5. 
o 2 Ki. 14. 28; 2 Ch. 13. 6. 
p 2 Ki. 15. 14. 

<7 2 Ki 15. 22. 

** 2 Ki 15. 25 
S 2 Ki 17. 1. 

















































































































































































































































THE LOST TEN TRIBES. 


45 


their own upon mount Gerizim. Jesus himself “ abode 
among this people for two days,” after conversing with the 
woman of Samaria; “ and many believed, because of his 
own word” (John 4. 40, 41). The persecution by the 
Emperor Justinian almost extinguished the community of 
Samaritan Jews; but yet, in the sixteenth century, a 
remnant of them was discovered in the neighbourhood 
of their holy mount, Gerizim, who still possessed the Law 
in the Old Hebrew character (for they never adopted the 
Chaldee), and this manuscript is called the Samaritan 
Pentateuch. Learned men consider it a most valuable 
relic of antiquity. It had been lost sight of for 1000 
years. It is now printed in the “ London Polyglot,” by 
Bishop Walton. 

These Samaritans exist to this day ; they are very few 
in number; they assert their descent from the tribes of 
Ephraim and Manasseh, and say that their dialect is the 
true and original Hebrew in which the Law was given. 

The Jews do not acknowledge them, and contemp¬ 
tuously call them “alien colonists”: but, if so, it is very 
extraordinary that they possess this manuscript, which 
corresponds almost word for word with the Hebrew text. 
One of the copies may be seen in the British Museum. 
The missionary Fisk says, “ the Samaritans have also 
copies of the books of Joshua and Judges, in separate 
volumes.” 

Before we pass on to the time of Ezra, it is essential to 
the Story of the Book that we refer to two or more of the 
kings of Judah, one of whom, Josiah, found a part of 
the word of God, when it was lost, and another, Jehoia- 
kim, dared to bum a part of it, in defiance of God and 
his prophet, Jeremiah. 

The history of the lost roll may be found in 2 Kings 
22 and 23. Josiah and Cyrus are the only two persons 
in Scripture prophesied of by name, long before their 
birth. You will find the prophecy concerning Josiah in 
1 Kings 13. 2, and its literal fulfilment in 2 Chron. 34. 5. 


46 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


When he found the roll, he honoured it, and caused 
the people to “ stand to it,” as for thirteen years after¬ 
wards they did. With Josiah ended the peace, the pros¬ 
perity, and the piety of Judah; and the history of that 
kingdom closes with— 

THE BURNT ROLL, 

burnt in the reign of Jehoiakim, which lasted eleven evil 
years. He was the first person who dared to destroy any 
part of the written ivord of God , and he might therefore 
well be Judah’s last king. The reverence of the Jews 
in general for their Divine writings was so great, that if, 
in copying the manuscripts, they made a single error, 
they would reject the material thus spoiled, and have 
begun all again. They never permitted themselves to 
retouch or erase; and in coming to the name Jehovah, 
they always wiped their pens and refilled them. When 
the manuscripts became at all old or injured, they reve¬ 
rently buried them in graves; and this is the reason why 
there are not in existence any very old Hebrew manu¬ 
scripts of the Scriptures—none earlier than A. D. 1200. 

Jehoiakim felt none of this reverence. He daringly 
sent his page, Jehudi, to fetch the roll of the prophecy 
which he heard Jeremiah had written against him, from 
the scribe’s chamber in the temple, and then he also told 
Jehudi to read it to him. 

Jehudi, however, had read but three or four columns, 
when the king, who sat in his winter house with a fire 
burning before him, snatching it from the reader, cut it 
with a penknife, and cast it into the fire.* Two or three 
of the princes around begged him not to burn it, but he 
would not hear them. He was then about to seize the 
writers, Jeremiah and Baruch, but it is said, “ the Lord 
hid them.” 

For this crime it was decreed by God that Jehoiakim 


See Jeremiah 36. 23. 


THE CAPTIVITY AND RETURN. 47 

should have none to sit upon the throne of Judah, and 
that his dead body should be cast out in the day to the 
heat, and in the night to the frost, which was literally 
fulfilled, as recorded by Josephus in the eighth chapter of 
his tenth book,—“ the body of the king was thrown into 
the fields without the walls of the city”; “his burial was 
as the burial of an ass, beyond the gates of Jerusalem”; 
and then all the wealth of the city, its princes, its mighty 
men, and many thousands of captives, were carried away 
into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar, for seventy years, to 
Babylon. 

THE CAPTIVITY AND RETURN. 

We know, from what is said of Daniel and Ezekiel, 
that, in the days of their exile, the people were not with¬ 
out their Scriptures. By the rivers of Babylon they sat 
down and wept; they wept when they remembered Zion. 

It has been the constant tradition of the Jewish Church, 
that Ezra, the great reformer, with the assistance of the 
members of the great synagogue, amongst whom were 
the prophets Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, collected 
as many copies as possible of the sacred writings, and 
from them set forth the canon of the Old Testament. 
Ezra’s own book, with those of Nehemiah and Malachi, 
was added 128 years afterwards, by Simon the Just, who 
was the last of that synagogue. He died B.C. 292. 

On the return of the people from captivity, and after 
they had rebuilt their temple, they having forgotten the 
Law, it was re-delivered to them by Ezra, of whom the 
Jews always speak as of a second Moses; and they say 
that he lived, like Moses, for 120 years. 

This forgetting of the Law, on the part of the people, 
argues, that the copies of it had been very scarce, and 
that it had not been publicly, read to them all the while 
they were in Babylon; and yet, even there, Daniel, who 
wrote in kings’ courts, and Ezekiel, on the river Chebar, 
in solitude, at thirty miles’ distance from the city, had 


48 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


been inspired to add to the sacred writings two of the 
most wonderful of the prophetical books—bearing their 
own names. 

At the appointed time, King Cyrus, having conquered 
Babylon, and being made to see, by Daniel, the pro¬ 
phecies that God had uttered concerning him, in the days 
of Hezekiah, as the deliverer of the Jews (Isaiah 44.28), 
issued an edict, permitting them to return to Jerusalem. 

You will find the history of their return in the books 
of Ezra and Nehemiah. 

Only the “ remnant” of the nation returned ; many, it 
seems, preferred staying in Babylon ; vast numbers went 
to Egypt. A hundred thousand earnest men (perhaps 
scarcely so many, for Ezra speaks of the return only as 
“ giving us a nail in the holy place”) sought once more 
the land of their fathers. The journey occupied four 
months, and was accomplished in two bodies, or caravans. 
They still suffered great distress on their arrival, and did 
not for twenty years begin to rebuild their temple; and 
at its foundation the elder Jews, who had seen the temple 
of Solomon, wept with a loud voice, for they knew that 
this temple would be nothing to the first, and truly when 
it was completed, four things were found wanting in 
it. There was no ark, no sacred fire on the altar, no answer 
by Urim and Thummim, no Shekinah or cloud of glory be¬ 
tween the cherubim. Still they rejoiced in the re-establish¬ 
ment of the passover and the temple service; and under 
Nehemiah the city walls were rebuilt on the old founda¬ 
tions. 

The republishing of the Law, by Ezra, did not take 
place till eighty years after the return of the first caravan 
of pilgrims from Babylon. Try to realize the features of— 

Ezra’s ministry. 

Upwards of 50,000 of the people were assembled in 
Jerusalem, in the square of the water-gate, as many as 


49 


EZRA S MINISTRY. 

were assembled in Trafalgar-square, in London, at the 
funeral of the late Duke of Wellington. 

A surging sea of human faces is always a grand sight. 
On the day that Ezra preached, and it was early in the 
morning of the Jewish Sabbath, 50,000 faces were up¬ 
turned towards the pulpit of wood on which he stood, 
surrounded by thirteen more preachers on a platform or 
gallery, six on one side of him, and seven on the other. 
Thirteen other teachers seem to have been present on 
another platform, to read by turns, so that all the people 
might be addressed. 

When Ezra ascended the pulpit and opened the roll of 
the Law, the whole congregation stood up: then he 
offered prayer and praise to God, the people bowing their 
heads and worshipping, with their faces to the ground; 
and, at the close of the prayer, with uplifted hands they 
said, “Amen.” 

Then, all still standing, Ezra, assisted sometimes by the 
Levites, read the Law distinctly, gave the sense, and 
caused them to understand the reading,—a model of what 
preaching still should be. 

The Law, as delivered by Ezra, so affected the hearers, 
that they wept exceedingly, and about noon Ezra and 
Nehemiah thought fit to restrain it. From the great ex¬ 
citement they evinced, it would seem that the reading 
of their Scriptures, in the language they understood 
(Chaldee), was a new thing to them. In the temple ser¬ 
vice, it had no doubt been read in the sacred language 
(Hebrew). 

On the second day the reading was resumed, they were 
again instructed in the Law, and they then appear to have 
arrived at the 31st chapter of Deuteronomy, when Moses 
commanded the keeping of the feast of Tabernacles, 
which they immediately prepared to obey. They gathered 
as of old, branches of palm-trees and willows of the brook, 
the pine, the myrtle, and the foliage of the mount of 
Olives, to make booths, and there was very great gladness. 


50 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Under the shadow of these booths, for the space of 
seven days, they remembered all the toils of the wilderness; 
and day by day Ezra read to them in the books of the 
Law of God: probably in all the books,—for the Old 
Testament was now complete, with the exception of the 
history of the current times. Doubtless the history of the 
nation was read; and they were made to review God’s 
dealings with them : very likely the Psalms were sung 
relating to the events which David and others had cele¬ 
brated ; and we cannot but believe that Ezra also pointed 
to the Prophets, and showed the people how minutely 
many of the words spoken by them had been fulfilled. 

They knew that the revelation was supported by the 
great pillars of miracle and prophecy; and at this era, the 
common people under Ezra’s teaching must have been 
taught to feel the strength of both. They stood in the 
midst of a circle of doomed countries, on all of which the 
threats of their sacred writings had been fulfilled, as well 
as most bitterly upon themselves. 

Nineveh, Tyre, Petra, Thebes, and Babylon,* as well 
as Jerusalem, had all been desolated within a space of 
forty years, chiefly by Nebuchadnezzar, the Chaldean 
king, called by Jeremiah “the hammer of the whole 
earth” (Jer. 50. 23). Judgment had begun at the House 
of God, as it always does; and the divided kingdom of 
Israel had, as we have seen, fallen by the hand of the 
kings of Nineveh, 730 B.c. 

Hosea was the prophet who had especially foretold 
their troubles. If you look back to the table,! you will 
see that he lived during the reigns of several of the last 
wicked king3 of Israel. The ten tribes were in his time 
frightfully corrupt: the kings were murderers; the very 
priests were idolaters. When you have read Hosea’s 
prophecy, you can refer to its fulfilment, in the 17th chap¬ 
ter of 2 Kings. Before the carrying away of the nation 


You should look for these on a map. f See page 44. 


NINEVEH. 


51 


into Assyria, they had endured the deep miseries of a 
seven years’ famine, when a woman slew and boiled her 
own son for food, as Moses had foretold (Deut. 28. 53). 

The kingdom of Israel existed 254 years distinct from 
Judah, under nineteen kings, all of whom were wicked 
men,—the instruments of its punishment. Assyria, whose 
capital was Nineveh, was called by Isaiah “ the rod of 
God’s anger” (Isaiah 10. 5). Nineveh had long been 
an enemy to the Jewish nation. The kingdom of Assyria 
was as old as that of Egypt. Noah himself may have seen 
its rise. His grandson Asshur went out of the land of 
Shinar, and builded Nineveh (Gen. 10. 11); and for 1300 
years it had endured in power and glory, during all the 
periods of the Jewish history through which we have just 


Ten or eleven years ago, we knew a little about Nineveh, 
the gods she worshipped, the kings who ruled over her, her 
wealth and her wickedness, and more especially that she 
once repented for awhile at the preaching of a Jewish 
prophet, very rarely sent to a heathen city. We knew 
that the river Tigris flowed sluggishly along through the 
waste plains where the city once stood with all its palaces, 
that nothing was to be seen but desolate mounds, where 
great feasts had been held by conquering kings for 120 
days together, that the mighty walls with their 1500 
towers, and the vast multitude with their 120,000 little 
children, were all gone down into the grave of 3000 years. 

We had found much about Nineveh in the Jewish 
prophecies. Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Nahum, had foretold 
her ruin; and Diodorus, a Greek historian, had told us of 
the funeral pile of its King Sardanapalus in his own palace, 
when, heaping his gold and silver, garments and jewels, 
himself and his wives, on a great pile of wood (that he 
might not fall into the hands of his enemies), he con¬ 
sumed himself, his treasures, and his palace. 

We, who believed the Bible, had no doubt of all tins in 
our childhood; but we had no idea that in this part of the 
earth, also, God had laid up a great stone library for you 


52 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


of this generation to read, and to be convinced that the 
Book and its volumes agree: for Nineveh has been dis¬ 
entombed since you were born. 

Over its ruins, the sands of the desert had heaped 
themselves for ages, in which the Arabs had built villages, 
and made graves for generation after generation; for 
had not God said to it, by Nahum, “ Thou shalt be hid” 
(Nahum 3. 11); “I will cast abominable filth upon thee, 
and will make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazing- 
stock”? (Nahum 3. 6.) 

In the year 1842, a learned Frenchman and a wander¬ 
ing English scholar, Mons. Botta and Mr. Layard, sought 
the seat of this once powerful empire, and searched till 
they found the dead city. They threw off its shroud of 
sand and ruin, and revealed to an astonished and curious 
world the temples, the palaces, and the idols of that 
Nineveh of Scripture, in which the captive tribes of Israel 
had laboured and wept,—the twin-sister of Babylon, who 
was like a “ cedar in Lebanon,” and who made all the 
nations to shake at the sound of its fall. We are now 
able to realize this fall, with something of the same minute¬ 
ness with which Ezra could have depicted it to the Jews 
who had returned from the captivity; and we dwell 
longer on the ruin of this heathen power than any other, 
because, through its means, we can show you what were 
the idolatries after which the nation of Israel went, and 
which were the cause of their rejection and their ruin. 

If you visit London or Paris, you may look with your 
own eyes on the vast stony forms which have come up 
from their long and solemn sleep in the depths of the 
earth, such as those in the national museums. 

The eyes of the Prophet Ezekiel may have looked 
upon those very sculptures. They were a kind of heathen 
cherubim. The eastern nations had derived their idea of 
them from the traditions concerning the cherubim at the 
gate of Eden, uniting in one the noblest forms of their kind 
—the lion among wild beasts, the bull among tame ones, 
the eagle among the birds, and man as the lord of all. 


NINEVEH. 


53 



Winged Bull. 


Every day as Mr. Layard broke further into the earth, 
he found fresh wonders, which he has forwarded to the 
Museum; and he has written two very interesting books to 
explain them. He found that these colossal forms were 
placed at the entrance of the palace-temple, whose steps 
came down to the river’s brink; that every room in the 
palaces had been coated with slabs, on which were carved 
histories, not in words, but in figures standing out from 
the stone, called bas-reliefs; and though some of these 
crumbled to powder as they were being dug out, because 
they had been calcined with fire, according to the pro¬ 
phecy of Nahum,—“then shall the fire devour thee,”— 
still a great many slabs have been sent home to the 
Museum, where a beautiful hall has been prepared to re¬ 
ceive them; and now we can walk among its long, light 
galleries, and read the story of Nineveh all in stone, dug 
up by the Arabs of the desert. 

There is some curious writing upon those vast bulls, all 
in arrow-headed character, and you cannot read it. Seve¬ 
ral learned men, however, have begun to do so; and Mr. 
Layard tells us, that they have decyphered a complete 
history of the reign and character of Sennacherib, allusion 
to whom is made in the Bible, at 2 Kings 18. 13. There 
















54 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 



is an awful strangeness in being thus, as it were, brought 
face to face with the solemn antiquities of the Bible, and 
with our own earliest sacred recollections. 


Arrow-headed Character. 

I ~K« a- ^ 

- a Us a? i-ern= i- et 

h-ef cEi -tn »ei <g| 

er d< <t—tt<t a sit ~r< ^ 


[Translation.] 


“ Sennacherib, the mighty king, king of the country of Assyria 
sitting on the throne of judgment, before (or at the entrance of) the 
city of Lachish (Lachisha), I give permission for its slaughter.” 



* The 


Obelisk. 




JERUSALEM. 


55 


A certain old obelisk, found also at Nineveh, is now in 
the British Museum: upon it are recorded, according to 
Major Rawlinson, the names of Jehu and Hazael, both 
known to you in Scripture. 

Many other names of kings, 
idols, countries, and cities, 
mentioned in the Old Testa¬ 
ment, occur in the Assyrian 
tablets, on which also are 
depicted continually images 
of the god Nisroch, the god 
of Sardanapalus, the hawk¬ 
headed deity. And when the 
Jews had had read to them 
the Prophet Nahum, when 
it was read in Hebrew and 
translated into Chaldee, they 
well knew how the prophet’s 
words had been fulfilled. The 
cormorant and the bittern 
lodged in the upper lintels of 
the palaces of that rejoicing 
city, that had said in her 
heart, “I am, and there is none beside me”; God had 
uncovered the cedar-work (Zeph. 2.14, 15). As we hope 
you will take time to refer to the chief prophecies which 
concern Assyria and Nineveh, we have given you a list 
of them: 

Isaiah, ch. 10. 15-19; ch. 31. 8. The book of Nahum. 

Ezek. ch. 31. 3-17. Zeph.ch. 2. 13-15. 

The city of Nineveh had fallen 611 B.C., nearly 200 years 
before Ezra’s re-publication of the Scriptures. It was 600 
miles from Jerusalem. 



Nisroch. 


JERUSALEM. 

Having looked on the destruction of Nineveh, the 











66 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


sorrowful gaze of Judah must again have been turned 
upon herself ,—for she was the next who fell under the 
power of Nebuchadnezzar. Her idolatry had provoked 
the God of her fathers to jealousy, till He would bear 
with her no more. 

She had worshipped, after the manner of Egypt, creep¬ 
ing things and abominable beasts (Ezek. 8), even close to 
the sanctuary of God, therefore he at last had dealt with 
her in fury ; and Ezekiel (chap. 18) had seen Him depart 
from off the threshold of the house on the cherubim’s 
wings, “ scattering coals of fire” over the devoted city, 
as he went to return no more in glory, in that dispen¬ 
sation. 

It was for her IDOLATRY that Judah lost her land. 
She rejected God and his word; and since the days of Je- 
hoiakim, has never possessed her kingdom, but as the servant 
of some foreign power. She held it under the Babylonians, 
the Persians, the Grecians, and the Romans,—Daniel’s 
“ four beasts” ; and now under the Roman power in its 
papal form (the so-called “holy shrines” being scattered 
over all her mountains), Jerusalem still abides till the 
times be fulfilled, when, returning^rs^ to that Moses and 
the prophets (Mai. 4. 4) whom Jehoiakim cast aside, 
she shall forswear the vain traditions with which she has 
overlaid the Law, and go up once more to build the old 
wastes, and repair the desolations of many generations ; 
and there, “ at Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and suppli¬ 
cation being poured upon her,” as Zechariah tells us, at 
chapter 12. 10, “ she shall look upon Him whom she 
hath pierced, and mourn”; and “all nations shall call 
her blessed in her delightsome land” (Mai. 3. 12). The 
prophecies foretelling the siege of Jerusalem by Nebu¬ 
chadnezzar, will be found in— 


Isaiah, chap. 3. 

Jer. chap. 25. 9—12. 


Jer. chap. 27. 
Ezek. chap. 12. 


TYRE.—PETRA. 


57 


TYRE. 

We must now pass for a moment to Tyre, the city on 
the rock, overlooking the sea,—the noblest colony of the 
sons of Anak, reposing beneath the shadow of mount 
Lebanon. Four years after Nebuchadnezzar had been 
used to chastise the Jews, he was employed in punishing 
the sins of Tyre. 

Tyre, the merchant-city, was to the old world what 
London now is to the new. Her glory is described in 
the 27th chapter of Ezekiel: her fall is prophesied in the 
28th. Of Nebuchadnezzar’s army, during the siege, it is 
said, that by the toils of thirteen years before its walls, 
every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled, 
—a result arising from wearing their armour so long, and 
carrying burdens to build the high terraces from which 
they made their attack. Seldom has the deep gathered 
such a harvest to its treasures, as when Tyre fell in the 
midst of its waters. Its ruined pillars of red and white 
marble lie scattered along the shore. Perhaps some day, 
another Mr. Layard may bring to light the ancient Tyre, 
For the prophecies of the destruction cf Tyre see— 

Isaiah, chap. 23. 

Ezek. chapters 26, 27, and 28. 

Tyre yielded to Nebuchadnezzar, B.C. 571, nineteen 
years after the prophecies against it. Like all the heathen 
cities, Tyre was wicked and proud. She had said, “ I 
am perfect in beauty,” and her heart was lifted up because 
of her beauty. There is a small book published by “ The 
Tract Society,” entitled, “ Tyre; its Rise, Glory, and 
Desolation,” which contains a rich store of information, 
especially designed for young persons, and to which we 
must refer them. 

PETRA. 

This city is the Bozrah of the Bible, and was the 
southern capital of Edom. 


58 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


When Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem, the Edom¬ 
ites were almost as numerous as the Jews. Moses tells us 
(Gen. 36. 1), that Esau is Edom. Esau had hated Jacob, 
and their children were always at enmity. The Edomites 
had united with Nebuchadnezzar to besiege Jerusalem, 
and urged him to raze it even with the ground (Psalm 
137. 7). The prophecies against Edom are very many, 
and are a continuation of God’s wrath upon Amalek, 
which became the ascendant race and general name for 
all the children of Esau.* These prophecies are distinct 
from those against Ishmael, whose children are spoken of 
as the tribes of Kedar and Nebaioth. On Esau, or Edom, 
the judgments pronounced are by far the most severe, 
and on his city, Petra, they were chiefly poured. Spoiler 
after spoiler ruined it. The people worshipped the sun 
and moon, and made their houses, palaces, and temples 
in the rocks and sides of the mountains which surround 
the valley in which Petra is situated. This wondrous 
city, with its rock-hewn pillars and statues of exquisite 
beauty, once the halting-place and mart of all the cara¬ 
vans of the wilderness, fell under the dominion of Jews, 
Greeks, Romans, and Arabs, till it became what it now 
is,—“ an utter desolation,” “ none passing through it for 
ever.” For 1200 years its very existence was unknown: 
it is approached only through a narrow defile of rocks, 
two miles in length, through which but two horsemen 
can ride abreast, under festoons of climbing plants and 
trees. At the end of the defile, Petra, the dead city, 
bursts upon you, silent and beautiful in its desert tomb. 
For the prophecies against Edom see— 

Jer. chap. 27. 3-11; chap. 49. 7-22. Joel, chap. 3. 19. 

Ezek. chap. 25. 12-14; chap. 32. 29. Obad. ver. 1, 8, 9. 

And that all these things were fulfilled before the time of 
Malachi, we know from Mai. 1. 2, 3. 


* Forster’s “ Geography of Arabia.’ 


EGYPT.—BABYLON. 


59 


EGYPT. 

In reflecting on tlie words of their prophets, the Israel - 
ites would also turn to Egypt. This ancient kingdom, 
also, was intensely proud. Her king, Pharaoh Hophra, 
says Herodotus, “ had boasted that it was not even in the 
power of God to dethrone him ” ; and Ezekiel compared 
him to a great dragon lying in the midst of his streams, 
and saying, “ My river is mine own, and I have made it 
for myself” (Ezek. 29. 3.) Nebuchadnezzar caused him to 
be strangled in his own palace. He made dreadful havoc 
in the dominions of the Pharaohs. God had put the 
sword into his hand, and he was to break the images, and 
burn with fire the houses of the gods, while the Jews, 
who had gone down to Egypt, and wickedly determined 
to burn incense to the queen of heaven, were to be con¬ 
sumed in these judgments, till there was an end of them 
(Jer. 44.12). From that hour Egypt has been the basest 
of the kingdoms, and Israel has leant upon it as a staff no 
more. The prophecies against it are found in— 

Isaiah, ch. 19; ch. 30. 1-7. Ezek. chapters 29 and 30. 

Jer. chap. 46. „ chap. 31. 1-18 ; chap. 32. 

Joel, chap. 3. 19. 

And for their fulfilment, besides the destruction caused 
by Nebuchadnezzar, you must likewise refer to the times 
when the Persian war-cry rang through the crowded 
streets of Thebes, when Cambyses laid his destroying hand 
on Kamak and its sculptures, and when Alexander the 
Great completed the ruin his predecessors had begun. 

BABYLON. 

Once more the eye of the chosen people would turn to 
the fall of the all-conquering Babylon itself. You have 
heard of its brazen gates and its 67 6 squares, its walls and 
its hanging gardens, where Nebuchadnezzar said, “ Is not 


60 


THE BOOK AKi> ITS STORY. 


this great Babylon which I have built?” You remember 
the hand that wrote in fire on the walls of Belshazzar’s 
palace; and having referred to the prophecies of the fall 
of this mighty empire in— 

Isaiah, chap. 13; chap. 21. 9 ; chap. 48. 14-20; 

Jer. chapters 50 and 51; 

—you will be prepared to read the sublime narration oi 
Daniel, the eye-witness of all its horrors, in the fifth 
chapter of his own book. 

How deeply the lesson of all these vast fulfilments of 
the word of God was impressed upon the minds of the 
returned remnant of Judah, we may judge from the fact, 
which all history confirms, that they ever afterwards felt 
a profound dread and aversion for all the pagan idolatries. 

Ezra did much to cut off this evil at its root, by causing 
them to put away at once their heathen wives. This was 
a severe and terrible measure, and it grieved him deeply 
to enforce it (see Ezra 9. 10); but he felt it was essential 
to their future existence as a nation. 

While Nehemiah was governor of Judea, the Jewess, 
Esther, was raised to the Persian throne; and with her 
beautiful history, the records of the ancient world, as 
given to us in the Bible, are ended. 


61 


CHAPTER IV. 

TUB JEWISH BIBLE COMPLETE.-THE APOCRYPHA.-THE SEPTUA- 

glnt.—Daniel’s two pictures.—antiochus epiphanes.—the 

MACCABEES.-JUDAS MACCABEUS.-THE ROMAN POWER.-POM- 

PEY.-CAESAR.-THE DRUIDS.—THEIR HEBREW ORIGIN.-SER¬ 
PENT-WORSHIP.—DRUIDICAL REMAINS.-GREEK PHILOSOPHERS. 

-HEROD.—THE TEMPLE.— THE SYNAGOGUES.—TRADITIONS OF 

THE PHARISEES.-TARGUMS.-PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES.— 

THE FAITHFUL FEW.-THE RABBINS.-JOHN THE BAPTIST.—HIS 

MINISTRY.-OUR LORD’S ADVENT.-HIS MISSION.-BOOKS OF THE 

NEW TESTAMENT.-THE FIRST CENTURY.-ITS APOSTLES AND 

ELDERS.—THE LAST SUPPER.-VIOLENT DEATH OF ALL WHO 

PARTOOK OF IT, EXCEPT JOHN.—FIRST AND SECOND PAGAN 
PERSECUTIONS.-DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 

We wish to take you in this chapter through the Story of 
the Book for a period of 500 years, comprising the last four 
centuries of the Old Testament dispensation, and the first 
century of the New. 

The Hebrew people must still be regarded in one light, 
for the four centuries before the coming of the Lord, as 
the keepers of the word of God. They alone had re¬ 
ceived it, and they preserved it through this middle 
space of time between Malachi, the last of their prophets, 
and the cry of John the Baptist in the wilderness of 
Judea, whose coming, as the forerunner of the Lord, 
Malachi’s last words had foretold (see MaL 4. 5, and 
Matt. 3. 1, 2). 

The Bible of the Jews was complete. It is called the 
“Canon of the Old Testment.” The word canon means 
rule, a settled law; and, as you may have heard of 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


62 

some books not in this canon, which are generally called 
the Apocrypha , and which may still be found in some 
Bibles, bound up between the Old and New Testaments, 
we must give you a short history of them. 

They were not inspired books: some were written by 
learned Jews at Alexandria, after the prophetic spirit 
had ceased with Malachi. Not even their writers say 
they are inspired: they were written in Greek and not in 
Hebrew, the ancient sacred language. They were never 
received as sacred by the ancient Jewish Church, and not 
a single passage in them is ever quoted by Jesus Christ, 
his apostles. 

? ew of these books are considered valuable as a con¬ 
necting link in history, but a child may perceive the 
difference between them and the Holy Scriptures. 

These apocryphal or doubtful books were not added 
to the Hebrew copies of the Scriptures, but only to the 
“ Septuagint,” or Greek version, made at Alexandria, B.C. 
277, by a council of seventy learned men, for the use of 
the Jews in Egypt, who were accustomed to speak Greek. 

Alexandria was then a chief colony of the Jews; it is 
said that a hundred thousand of them resided there. It 
was at that time one of the greatest cities in the world. 

Learned men consider this translation, called the Sep¬ 
tuagint, very valuable. The evangelists and the apostles 
quoted from it as much as from the Hebrew. 

During the Babylonian captivity, the Prophet Daniel 
was inspired to give to the world two pictures of the fur¬ 
ther events that.would occur in the 400 years which were 
to introduce the kingdom of the Messiah. 

The figures which compose his first picture had pre¬ 
viously been presented in a dream to the mind of Nebu¬ 
chadnezzar himself; and Daniel was called upon to declare 
what the king had seen, and to explain its meaning. 

Nebuchadnezzar had seen in his dream an image with a 
head of gold, its breast of silver, its middle of brass, and 
its legs of iron, the feet partly iron and partly clay, and 


or by 
A: 


DANIEJ-'S TWO PICTURES. 63 

he had seen a stone cut out without hands smiting this 
image on its feet, and breaking the whole fabric to pieces. 

This dream Daniel thus explained. He told Nebuchad¬ 
nezzar that he, the King of Babylon, was himself the 
head of gold; that after his kingdom should come three 
other kingdoms, each less glorious than his; and that all 
four should be destroyed by a greater kingdom than any 
of them,—the kingdom of the God of Heaven, which 
should last for ever. You must read the dream and its 
interpretation in the second and third chapters of the 
book of Daniel. 

The prophet’s second picture is contained in his 
seventh chapter; and it is a picture of the same four 
great empires, but now represented under the form of 
four great beasts, who were also to succeed one another 
in dominion. 

Further visions in the eighth chapter informed Daniel, 
that the second kingdom was that of the Medes and 
Persians, the third that of the Grecians; the fourth em¬ 
pire is not named, but it is fully described, and events 
proved it to be the mighty power of Rome. 

All ancient history confirms the truth of this magnifi¬ 
cent prophecy. The Babylonian empire passed away, as 
we have seen, at the taking of Babylon by Cyrus: the 
Persian empire fell when Darius was conquered, B. C. 
330, by Alexander, who is the leopard of the picture, 
with four heads; while the Grecian ceded to the Roman 
power about 150 years before Christ, which then began 
to eclipse all others; and having conquered Carthage, 
soon became the sovereign of the world. 

It principally concerns us to know what became of the 
Jews during this period. Among themselves, the high- 
priests had the chief power. The sixth in succession 
from the time of their governor Nehemiah, was Simon 
the Just; his most important work (according to tra¬ 
dition) was the final arrangement of the books of the Old 
Testament. He added to Ezra’s collection the books of 


THE BOOK AND ITS STOBY. 


64 

Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and Malachi; and thus, as we 
have said, completed the canon. 

About this time, from the intercourse of the Jews with 
the Greeks, and in imitation of their schools of wisdom, 
sprung up two sets of learned doctors in Jerusalem, called 
the Pharisees and the Sadducees. 

At this period also arose their very great enemy, 
Antiochus Epiphanes. The Jews have never forgotten 
his cruelties to this day. He was truly “a vile person"; 
and the accounts of heathen historians seem to prove that 
he answers to Daniel’s description of the King of the 
North (Daniel 11. 21): by the North, is intended Syria, 
which was north of Palestine. 

Antiochus caused a general massacre in Jerusalem, 
which lasted three days: 40,000 Jews were killed, and 
as many made slaves. He then entered the temple to 
carry off its gold and silver, and caused swine to be 
sacrificed upon its altar. 

Shortly afterwards, he attacked the city on the Sab¬ 
bath, when the Jews were forbidden to fight; slew many, 
and sold more; shed blood within and without the 
temple; and, building a strong fortress on mount Zion, 
caused such multitudes to flee, that the city was like a 
desert; the daily sacrifices were discontinued, B. C. 168 ; 
the temple dedicated to Jupiter, an idol placed therein, 
and only those Jews favoured who worshipped it through 
fear of death. 

Yet even at this time many were found faithful. 
They would not forget their Law, and change its ordi¬ 
nances. 

“ Then the wicked king rent in pieces the books of 
the Law which he found, and burnt them with fire; and 
whoever possessed copies of these books, or consented to 
the Law, it was ordained that they should die; wherefore 
they chose rather to die, that they might not profane the 
holy covenant.” 

“ So then, they died.” They led the way in the long 


JUDAS MACCABEUS. 


65 

roll of names, of the martyrs for the Book. Among these, 
the most distinguished were seven brethren, and their 
mother, under the Maccabees, who, refusing to disobey 
the Law of Moses, underwent every possible torment, 
and were at last fried alive, in a brazen pan made redhot, 
one after the other,—being supported of God, and each 
singing the words of Moses’ Song (Deut. 32. 36-43), 
exhorting one another to die for the truth’s sake. The 
mother entreated each son to be faithful unto death, and 
last of all she, like them, was tortured, and died also. 

In the midst of these troubles, God raised up for his 
people a deliverer as in old time, Judas Maccabeus, who 
trusted in the Lord, and in his name defeated the Syrian 
armies: then he cleansed the temple, and built a new altar 
in the place of that which was defiled: all the services 
and sacrifices were renewed three years and a half after 
they had been discontinued. 

Antiochus soon after this died in dreadful bodily tor¬ 
ments, with all the terrors of a guilty conscience; but 
the Syrians still continued to make war on Judea, and 
Judas continued to overcome them through prayer, God 
being with him as in the days of Israel of old. 

It was not in times of trouble that his faith failed. 
He became very rich, and a prince among the people. 
After many fresh victories, he grew weary of the further 
incursions of his enemies; and this Chief of the Maccabees 
sent to Rome, and sought for help from those who were 
ignorant of the Living God. 

Ere the messenger of Judas returned to bring a pro¬ 
mise of help from the Roman senate, he who had sought 
for other help than God’s, was slain, B. C. 161. The 
failure in faith of this man of God was like that of Je- 
hoshaphat of old; and by the step he took he hastened 
the ruin of his people. His death was bitterly lamented 
throughout Judea, as that of the greatest deliverer who 
had appeared since the days of David. 

We must pass over the successors of Judas Maccabeus: 


66 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


his nephews were wild and wicked men,—murderous 
high-priests, who assumed also the royal diadem: one of 
them, named Jannaeus, was a monster of cruelty, having 
the word of God for a light, and despising its guidance. 
The sin of rejecting even the Mosaic Law was far greater 
than any that the heathen nations could commit; and 
while such was the character of the high-priests, God 
might well desert the Jewish nation, as a nation , as he did 
from this time forward. 

The Jewish history henceforth is closely connected 
with that of the Roman empire. 

Pompey, the general of the Roman armies, took ad¬ 
vantage of the constant quarrels the Jews had among 
themselves, to add Judea to his conquests; and thus the 
fourth of the Gentile beasts of Daniel began to tread 
down the holy city. 

He took the temple by storm; and the Pharisees, 
who were always fighting against the Sadducees, earnestly 
helped him. The priests engaged in the daily services 
were slain where they stood. Pompey entered the holiest 
place: he saw no visible glory, for it had long departed 
(Ezek. 10); but he was astonished at finding no image 
or statue of the Deity. However, he showed his respect 
for the place by touching none of its treasures; and he 
ordered it to be cleansed and its services renewed. 

He then returned to Rome, entering it in his triumphal, 
glittering chariot, to which were yoked all the kings he 
had conquered; amongst them, Aristobulus of Judea, and 
his sons. He had overcome in that campaign fifteen 
kingdoms, taken 800 cities, and caused 1000 castles to 
acknowledge his empire; and he brought back treasure 
to the amount of five millions of our money. Yet he 
was only a single general of Rome’s armies. 

Was not thatfourth beast “ exceeding dreadful” (Daniel 
7. 19), with his “ teeth of iron and his nails of brass, de¬ 
vouring, breaking in pieces, and stamping the residue 
with his feet ” ? 


THE DRUIDS. 


67 


It is as trampled beneath these feet, that our own country, 
Britain, is first brought into conjunction with Judea. 

While Pompey triumphed in the East, Caesar went 
forth and conquered the West. The people of the Swiss 
valleys were first subdued, then 80,000 Germans fell be¬ 
fore him; the Belgae were defeated with such slaughter, 
that marshes and deep rivers were rendered impassable by 
heaps of dead bodies: then he subdued the Gauls, and 
only looked with the unsatisfied eye of a ravenous eagle 
(the standard of the Roman empire was an eagle), to the 
white cliffs of Albion, as he stood upon the shore of 
France. 

He sailed from Calais, B. C. 55, and landed where the 
town of Deal now stands. 

The Britons were even then fierce enough to frighten 
the Romans; but they could not withstand men clad in 
armour. We need not give you our own early history, 
for all English children are supposed to know it; but we 
must touch upon the ancient religion, such as it was, 
which prevailed among the Britons before the coming of 
the Lord. 

It was very ancient: its priests were called Druids, as 
were the priests of the Celtic nations in general. 

The Celtic nations descended from Japheth, who peo¬ 
pled Europe, and on whom that blessing was pronounced 
by his father Noah, “ God shall enlarge Japheth, and he 
shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his 
servant.” This promise had not been fulfilled in the 
times we have hitherto considered. We have led you to 
the ancient East, but now we shall return to look upon 
ourselves—the children of the West. 

The religion of the Druids was as old as that of the 
Magi of Persia, the Brahmins of India, and the Chaldees 
of Babylon and Nineveh. 

The corruptions of each, like those of Egypt, arose at 
first out of the pure religion of Noah; and ^ou will find 
that the simple primitive customs of the patriarchs of the 


68 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Bible suffered tbe least change among the Druids of 
Britain. 

When Caesar landed on our southern shores, he did not 
plant his silver Roman eagles in the Highlands and Is¬ 
lands of Scotland. Far out of the every-day world, in the 
Western Hebrides, side by side with Staffa, the cathedral 
of the sea, in the great bay of Loch-na-keal, there lay 
then, as there lies now, the island of Iona, whose oldest 
name was the “ Isle of the Druids.” 

Here, in times of which we have no written record, 
were carried on many of the simple religious customs of 
the old Hebrews: and when Nineveh had carved her vast 
stone cherubim, and bowed down before her eagle-headed 
Nisroch, and while Egypt worshipped her Isis and her 
Apis, in Iona was reared no temple and no image; but 
the altar of turf or stone, and the offering from the in¬ 
crease of the fold or field, testified to the one God, whom 
Noah served in the same manner when he came out of 
the ark. Afterwards Satan, the god of this world, cor¬ 
rupted this simple faith into the earliest of idolatries, and 
the worship of the sun became the religion of the Druids. 
There soon followed, as among all other heathen nations, 
the worship of the serpent. The serpent’s egg was the 
Druid’s crest, and the actual serpent lay entwined at the 
foot of their altars. One of their most remarkable re¬ 
mains is at Avebury, in Wiltshire, where 461 stones once 
composed the figure of a serpent extending for two and a 
half miles over the green hills, and serving as approaches 
to circles within a circle. The head and tail of the snake 
are still obvious.* 

It is one of the most remarkable triumphs of that “ old 
serpent the devil,” that he has succeeded in persuading 
fallen man, in every country, and in every age, without 
exception, to adore that reptile form in which he de> 
stroyed the happiness of our first parents. 


See Stukelev’s “ Aburv. 


SERPENT WORSHIP. 


69 


In the temple of Belus at Babylon, were worshipped 
large serpents of silver. In Persia, serpents were consi¬ 
dered the governors of the universe. The serpent Calya 
was worshipped in Hindostan, as was the serpent Python 
at Delphos. Under the form of the dragon, the serpent 
has to this day governed China and Japan; while the 
serpent-worship of Syria and Egypt is shown by all the 
ancient history of those countries. It entered largely into 
the mythology of Greece and Rome; and in order to 
separate God’s people from this universal serpent-worship, 
Hezekiah, when he broke the images, and cut down the 
groves, also broke in pieces even that precious relic, the 
brazen serpent that Moses had lifted up in the wilderness, 
calling it Nehushtan, or only a piece of brass, for the 
children of Israel had burnt incense to it (2 Kings 18. 4). 

But, to return to the Druids. The proof that their 
religion in its origin was patriarchal, we shall show you 
among trees and stones. 

The oak tree has at one time or other been held in 
especial reverence by all nations. The same word in 
Hebrew denotes an oak and an oath; and a stone placed 
under an oak was among the Hebrews a monument of a 
Divine covenant. 

When Joshua had written the words of the covenant 
in the Book of the Law of God, he took a great stone 
and set it up under an oak, at Shechem, and said to the 
people, “ This stone shall be a witness, for it hath heard 
all the words of the Lord” (Josh. 24. 25-27). On this 
very stone, Abimelech was afterwards made king (Judges 
9. 6). In earlier days, after Jacob’s beautiful ladder- 
dream, he took the stone which had been his pillow, and 
set it up at Bethel, in memorial of the place which had 
been to him the gate of heaven (Gen. 28. 18). 

Sometimes stones were raised to mark the spot of a 
victory, as at Mizpeh (1 Sam. 7. 12); sometimes over the 
grave of a dead friend, as upon Rachel’s grave (Gen. 35. 


70 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


20). The erect gravestones in our burial-grounds are me 
morials of this custom ; and in 1 Sam. 6. 15-18, we read 
of a stone rendered memorable by the ark of God being 
placed upon it, when returned from the Philistines, and 
taken out of the cart by the Levites, which stone had be¬ 
fore been well known as “ the great stone of Abel.” 

The most striking example of a circle of memorial- 
stones being set up, in Scripture, is by Joshua, at Gilgal, 
which word means circle. These stones were taken up 
out of the bed of the river, and pitched in Gilgal. At 
this place Samuel the prophet afterwards held his courts 
of judgments from year to year; and an altar must 
have been erected here, for at Gilgal was consecrated 
Saul, the first of Israel’s kings; and here also Agag 
was “ hewed in pieces before the Lord.” Gilgal appears 
to have been the customary residence of the Prophet 
Elisha. 

Those stones told wondrous histories throughout the 
old Hebrew times; and by no people were these customs 
so distinctly preserved as by the Druids. They, like 
Israel, worshipped in groves, at first very naturally seek¬ 
ing intercourse with God under the shadow of ancient 
woods, and set up memorial-stones generally under oaks, 
which to them were especially sacred; then, like Israel, 
and without their written revelation, polluting them by 
idol-worship, some have said, by human sacrifices. There 
is however considerable historical evidence, that the men 
killed on these stone altars, with one stroke of the sword, 
were those who, in later ages, would have forfeited their 
lives, as criminals, on the scaffold. From the posture in 
which the victim fell, the Druids decided their auguries 
or divinations. 

The circles of stone, called Druidical, are still numerous 
in Britain, on lofty hills and elevated plains; the most mag¬ 
nificent is that of Stonehenge, on Salisbury-plain. These 
circles are also found in Normandy. They were the 


DRTJIDICAL REMAINS. 


71 


temples for worship of our forefathers, open to the sky : 
the priests stood within the circle, the people without,— 
a dim shadow of Moses and the elders on mount Sinai 
and the people fenced off around its base,—also of the 
Tabernacle and its inner and outer courts. 

The Druids resorted, like Israel, to their place of 
stones, at all times of important consultation, and sat in 
their consecrated circles to judge and give laws. In Ice¬ 
land, these were called doom-rings. Sometimes the old 
stones witnessed the choice of kings amid the songs of 
the bards. In the very dress of the arch-Druid, there is 
something that reminds us of that of the high-priest— 
his rod, in imitation of that of Moses, his robes of pure 
white fastened by a girdle on which appeared the crystal 
of augury, encased in gold : as this jewel sparkled or grew 
dim, the person appealing to him rejoiced or trembled. 
Round his neck, also, was the breastplate of judgment, 
said to possess the property of squeezing the neck on the 
utterance of a false decision.* 

There were schools of the Druids like the schools of 
the prophets of old. Iona was their inner sanctuary ; and 
here a training-college for their order existed for centu¬ 
ries. Here also they buried their kings. They seem to 
have loved island refuges. Mona, or Anglesey, was also 
their favourite island, and Guernsey and Jersey are full 
of their altars. 

Some of their triads or wise sayings are very in¬ 
structive, such as, “ There are three unseemly thoughts, 
—‘ thinking ourselves wise; thinking every person else 
unwise ; thinking all we like becoming in us.’ There are 
three sorts of men,—‘ a man to God, who does good for 
evil; a man to man who does good for good, and evil for 
evil; and a man to the devil, who does evil for good.’ ” 
And while the bardic motto was actually, “ Truth against 


Meyrick’s “ Costumes.’ 


72 THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

the world,”—still, of revealed truth they knew nothing; 
superstition and cruelty mingled even with their simple 
forms of worship, and priest and people were alike perish¬ 
ing for lack of knowledge. 

The Komans called the Druids “ barbarians”; they 
called all barbarians whom they considered as less en¬ 
lightened than themselves and the Greeks : they called 
the Jews barbarians, even in the times of the apostles. 
Romans, Greeks, and barbarians were, in their view, the 
chief divisions among mankind. 

Rome, like an immense beehive, did as England now 
does,—sent forth its swarms from time to time into the 
countries which its legions had subdued. The Romans 
believed in many gods, but had no objection to add to 
their own gods those of the people they conquered, so as 
to reconcile them to their yoke. Such was the idea of 
the common people; but the learned men, though they 
seemed to agree with the vulgar, professed among them¬ 
selves to worship only one god in a great variety of forms. 

They constructed systems which they thought very 
wise, and divided themselves into a great many sects 
named after their founders, Epicurus, Aristotle, Plato, etc. 
These sects were always multiplying errors ; and whenever 
any truth is found among them, they had gathered it 
from the Jews, who were scattered everywhere, and 
whom they held in the greatest contempt, as well as the 
idea of their possessing a Divine revelation. 

We left the Jewish King, Aristobulus, in chains at Rome. 
The history of the Jewish nation was at this time so full 
of shocking crimes, that their own historian, Josephus, 
knows not how to recite it. The Romans divided Judea 
into five provinces, and appointed governors to each. 

One of these governors, Herod, afterwards persuaded 
the Romans to make him king. He was the son of 
Antipater, an ldumean, and he was the Herod who was 



THE TEMPLE. 


73 


king at the birth of Christ,—the Herod who killed his 
own wife, the beautiful Mariamne, without cause, and the 
Herod who rebuilt the temple—the old building being 
taken down in parts as the new one was raised. This 
temple was destined to be more honoured than ever 
temple had been before. It was very beautiful: it stood 
on mount Zion, the open courts around it paved with 
inlaid marbles, the roof of carved cedar covered with gold, 
supported by 162 columns of white marble. One of its 
ten gates was called “ the beautiful gate,” which was 
about thirty yards high, made of pure brass: over this 
gate hung a golden vine, to which the worshippers were 
continually adding a golden leaf or a golden grape. The 
roof was studded with golden spikes, to prevent birds 
from settling upon it. When the sun shone upon this 
pile of snowy marble, it must indeed have been gorgeous. 

The ceremonial service of this temple was, just pre¬ 
vious to the coming of Christ, carried out with regularity 
and splendour. The synagogues, also, or houses appointed 
for prayer and the reading of the law, by Ezra, were 
scattered thickly all over the land. 

The whole of the sacred writings were divided with 
reference to the synagogue service, so that there might be 
a portion for every Sabbath. At first, it is said, the Law 
only was read ; but that being forbidden by the tyrant, 
Antiochus Epiphanes, portions of the Prophets were read 
instead, until the people, being released from his tyranny, 
restored the reading of the Law, and continued that of 
the prophets.* 

At the time of Christ, there were more, than 400 sy¬ 
nagogues in Jerusalem alone. There were in every syna¬ 
gogue some paid ministers, called, in the New Testament, 
“ rulers of the synagogue,” who seem to have dealt out 
judgment for offences against religion and morals. Hence 


* Smith’s “ Hebrew People.’ 


74 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


we hear that the apostles were to be “ beaten in the syna¬ 
gogue,” and “ scourged in the synagogue” (Matt. 10. 17, 
Mark 13. 9). 

isow, let us look at these rulers of the synagogue. They 
were Pharisees,—men who pretended to revere Moses, 
and to live by his rules, who delighted to dwell on the 
pomp and splendour of their ancient ordinances, and the 
glory of their Law, but who took the liberty of adding to it 
very much. 

Josephus says, “ The Pharisees have delivered to the 
people many observances by succession from their fathers 
(i. e. handed down from father to son) which are not 
written in the Law of Moses.” 

The Pharisees set up a claim to be more wise and holy 
than the Sadducees, who said, “ Let us eat and drink, for 
to-morrow we die.” The Sadducees did not add to the 
Bible, but they took from it all but the five books of Moses; 
and even these they would not believe, if they could not 
understand them. The Sadducees were like our modern 
infidels, while the papists resemble the Pharisees. There 
was another sect, called the Essenes, who were so disgusted 
with both parties, that they forsook the synagogues and 
the cities, and looking upon the body as the prison of the 
soul, retired to solitude and hardship, as the monks did 
in after time. They refused to marry, lived on vegetables, 
wore a peculiar dress, and observed almost perpetual si¬ 
lence. 

We must describe to you a few of the additions made 
by the Pharisees to the Law of God. 

Certain learned persons in the days of the Maccabees 
had written books, called “ Targums,” signifying inter¬ 
pretation. Onkelos, the ancestor of Gamaliel, Paul’s in¬ 
structor, had written one targum; and a rabbi, named 
Jonathan, had written another. We will show you how 
rabbi Jonathan had altered the sense in expounding the 
53rd chapter of Isaiah— 


THE TARGUMS. 


75 


Jonathan’s Targum. 

7 He has prayed, he has been 
heard; and before he opened his 
mouth he was accepted. The 
strong of the people he shall de¬ 
liver as a lamb for a sacrifice, 
and as a sheep that is silent be¬ 
fore the shearer; and there shall 
be none who shall open his mouth 
in his presence, and speak a word. 

8 From chastisements and re- 
vengings he shall gather our 
captivity: and the wonderful 
things that shall be done for us 
in his days, who shall be able to 
recite ? For he shall take away 
the dominion of the nations from 
the land of Israel: the sins which 
my people have committed, even 
upon them shall they come. 

The 53rd chapter of Isaiah contains a minute and per¬ 
fect prophecy of the coming of our Lord in his humility . 
This kind of coming, the eyes of the Jewish teachers 
were not in the least degree opened to perceive. They 
expected a mighty deliverer and conqueror, and were 
totally unprepared to acknowledge their Messiah in the 
helpless babe of Bethlehem. 

As they themselves believed, so they taught the people. 
Jesus called them, when he came, “ blind leaders of the 
blind.” Among these, however, there seem to have been 
a few who, as Malachi says, “ spake often one to another,” 
and who were, like Zacharias and Elisabeth, “ righteous 
before God, and walking in all the ordinances of the 
Lord blameless.” These few must have rejected the tra¬ 
ditions of the Pharisees, and must secretly and devoutly 
have studied the sacred writings themselves. They were 
“ waiting for the consolation,” and “ looking for the re¬ 
demption of Israel.” 

The Pharisees were making “ the word of God of none 
effect by their tradition.” This, again, is our Saviours 


Isaiah 53. 

7 He was oppressed and he 
was afflicted; yet he opened not 
his mouth: he is brought as a 
lamb to the slaughter, and as a 
sheep before her shearers is dumb, 
so he opened not his mouth. 


8 He was taken from prison 
and from judgment: and who 
shall declare his generation ? for 
he was cut off out of the land of 
the living: for the transgression 
of my people was he stricken. 


76 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


own testimony concerning them. They were no longer 
the Church of the Book. The Book itself remained 
pure and perfect as it always had been; but these men 
declared that the word of God was divided into two 
parts,—the written and the unwritten. Both parts, they 
said, were given to Moses on mount Sinai; but he com¬ 
mitted the unviritten by word of mouth to Joshua and 
the seventy elders, who again committed it to the rabbins, 
who were to deliver it to the people. These were some 
of their sayings: “The Scriptures are water, but the 
traditions are wine.” “ The words of the scribes are 
lovely above the words of the Law.” “ Some of the 
words of the Law are weighty, but the traditions are all 
weighty.” 

This was the way in which they expounded the fourth 
Commandment; viz. To do no work on the Sabbath-day. 
If a loaf were to be carried on that day, by a single person, 
he would be guilty; but if two persons carried it together, 
both were innocent. God had said, that he who made a 
vow should keep it (Num. 30. 2). Tradition said, if he 
were weary of the vow, he might go to a wise man, and 
be absolved from it. 

And the people soon learned to set the authority of 
their rabbins above the authority of Scripture. It was 
said that all instructions from the Law were to be finished 
when a boy was ten years old, and the remainder of his 
education must be from the traditions. The Jews of the 
present day, it is said, withdraw their children from the 
Bible at the age of seven or eight; i. e. as soon as the 
boy’s mind is capable of understanding the Talmud. 

“ Prevent your children,” said rabbi Eliezer, “ from 
reading the word of God too much, lest they should be 
carried away with it.” Alas! alas! that such should be 
the sayings of Israel, the chosen people! Thus they be¬ 
came almost as ignorant of God and of his truth, as were 
the pagans around them,—all, excepting the small remnant 
kept faithful by the grace of God, who neither added to 


JOHN THE BAPTIST. 


77 

the word nor took away from it, and who were, doubt¬ 
less, saying in their hearts, “It is time for Thee, Lord, 
to work, for they have made void thy Law,” when Si¬ 
meon and Anna welcomed the Holy One once more to 
his temple, and by the revelation of the Holy Ghost pro¬ 
claimed Him as a “ light to lighten the Gentiles,” as well 
as “ the glory of his people Israel.” 

At the time of the birth of our Lord, the whole Roman 
world was at peace, and the temple of Janus shut. No 
remarkable event attracts our attention to any other part 
of the earth at the time when John the Baptist came 
crying in the wilderness of Judea, “ Prepare ye the way 
of the Lord, make his paths straight.” 

John was a noble young Jew, of about thirty years of 
age, who appeared in the deserts. We may imagine him 
in his rough raiment of camel’s hair, as of striking and 
powerful presence, with unshorn black locks and beard, 
and the flashing dark eye of his nation, crying, “ Repent 
ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He wrought 
no miracles, displayed no supernatural power, yet seemed 
a most unearthly being, raised up by God for the time, 
and in harmony with the place. 

Genuine and deep piety always impresses the common 
people, and the words of John set thousands of con¬ 
sciences to work that before were slumbering. Slothful, 
luxurious Jerusalem, sleeping in its sins, arose in one 
day, and went out to be baptised of John, in the Jordan. 

God might have sent his prophet into the city, but he 
was the man for the desert. His ministry had all its 
influence there. 

“ Prepare ye the way of the Lord,” said he; “ make 
his paths straight.” The Jehovah of Sinai, the God who 
made the worlds, was coming to make a royal progress; 
to walk through the cities and villages of J udea ; not as 
one of the silken rabbins of Jerusalem, with flowing 
robes and haughty air, but choosing rather the common 



78 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


seamless robe of a carpenter, woven from the top through¬ 
out, in which to teach the people the Truth of which he 
was Himself the author. 

On the slopes of that long line of mountains which run 
down the land of Palestine, once the strongholds of the 
mighty Rephaim, were now gathered crowds thinking of 
their sins. They broke away from their customary occupa¬ 
tions in Jerusalem, to throng around this strange preacher 
of the desert, where with eager expectation and awakened 
minds, thousands of them listened to the voice of him 
who cried in^the wilderness, “ Repent ye; for the king¬ 
dom of heaven is at hand.” It seems that even the hard¬ 
ened conscience of King Herod himself was awakened by 
the preaching of John: “Herod feared John, knowing 
that he was a just man and an holy, and observed him ; 
and when he heard him, he did many things, and heard 
him gladly” (Mark 6. 20). 

Now, let us mark the great Pharisees and Sadducees 
approaching the Jordan, and see what a fierce reception 
they met with: “Oh generation of vipers! who hath 
warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” They 
talked about Abraham being their father, but were as 
unlike Abraham as possible. 

The great cedars of Judaism!—they were cut down, 
being full of all manner of unclean birds ; and great was 
the fall of them. Their boughs were all scattered about 
the world, as they are to this day: the axe of the Lord 
was laid to their root, for they had not given glory to the 
King of kings, but had perverted his most Holy Word. 

Then, behold the humility of John the Baptist! “ There 
cometh one mightier than I, whose shoes’ latchet I am 
not worthy to unloose.” The ministry of the forerunner 
John was rejected by the proud Pharisees, and they 
afterwards denied the Son of God Himself, and put Him 
to an open shame. 

So the Lord came to his own, and his own received 
Him not; but He was a light to lighten the Gentiles, 


FIRST COMING OF THE LORD. 79 

and truly their darkness needed it: they worked the 
works of darkness, and were in the power of the devil, 
who led them captive at his will, and who dared to say 
to the Saviour Himself, that his were “ all the kingdoms 
of the world and the glory of them.” 

Jesus related a parable (Matt. 12. 29), showing in what 
sense it was so. He declared Himself as come to take 
possession of a house, and of the things in it: this house 
was the world, and the things in it were the souls of men. 

Jesus came to rescue these precious souls from Satan’s 
power. He compares Satan to the strong man who was 
in the house, and who tried to prevent the Saviour from 
entering in. He said, He must first bind the strong man, 
and then He would spoil his goods. 

This He came down to earth to do, by suffering death 
in his mortal body; and He is still engaged in releasing 
captives day by day from the power of Satan; and the 
day shall come when He shall lay hold on that “ old ser¬ 
pent the devil,” and bind him a thousand years (see 
Rev. 20. 2), and then indeed “ He shall spoil his goods.”* 

But we have still the tale of 1800 years to tell, and 
must hasten onwards, especially with the Story of the 
Book. 

The life and actions of our Lord and of his apostles 
are, perhaps, better known by the young than any other 
parts of the Bible. 

After the crucifixion and ascension of the Redeemer 
into heaven, the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, 
and John, inspired men, as were the prophets of old, 
committed to writing those particulars which the Holy 
Ghost saw fit should be preserved, concerning the minis¬ 
try of their Master, for our benefit. Luke then recorded 
their own acts and missionary travels. Paul, the con¬ 
verted persecutor, and attendant at the first martyrdom 


* “ Light in the Dwelling.’ 



80 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


of a Christian (that of Stephen), wrote fourteen letters to 
the churches which he had founded, while James, Peter, 
Jude, and John, completed the New Testament canon. 

Some of these books are called by Paul the New Tes¬ 
tament (see 2 Cor. 3. 6), while he refers to the Mosaic 


dispensation as the Old Testament. 

The different churches formed by the apostles in the 
first century received these books by degrees, and each 
church gradually obtained them all. Among the various 
opinions entertained concerning the person who finally 
collected them together, the most natural seems to be, 
that this was done by the Apostle John, whose life was 
long preserved by God for the comfort of the church. 
He was nearly one hundred years old when he died, and 
was himself inspired to utter the magnificent prophecies 
of the last portion of the Sacred Scriptures. 

When he was very old, and unable to say much in the 
Christian assemblies, “ Children, love one another,” was 
his constantly-repeated exhortation. Being asked why he 
only told them one thing, he answered that nothing else 
was needed. 

Oh that the Christian Church had always remembered 
this!—the last word of the last apostle repea ting the words 
of his Master,—“ as I have loved you, that ye also love 
one another” (John 13. 34) ; and the words of his brother 
Paul,—“ Love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13. 10). 

On the acts and revelations of this first century, as it is 
called (for at the coming of Christ the age of the world 
began again), it has pleased God to fix the eye of all true 
believers ever since. The deeds and sayings of all after¬ 
centuries derive their importance only from their con¬ 
nection with the first , because that alone was the century 
in which more mighty pillars of miracle and prophecy 
were reared to support the Church of Christ, than even 
those which lent their Divine strength to the church of 
the wilderness, and of the promised land. 

“ The Son of God was manifested ; that He might de- 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


81 


stroy the works of the devil ” (1 John 3. 8). The commis¬ 
sion He gave to his Apostles was to follow in his steps. They 
were to preach the gospel; and He also gave them power 
to heal the sick, to raise the dead, and to cast out devils, 
in his name, as a witness to the truth they preached. 

These men, gifted with more than human power, were 
to be the fathers of the Church of the New Testament. 
Afterwards he appointed other seventy also (Luke 10.1), 
and to them gave the same miraculous gifts. Their num¬ 
ber was the same as that of the Elders among the Jews, 
who went up with Moses to the mount. 

It is fairly to be concluded, that many who had been 
converted by the preaching of John in the wilderness, 
became afterwards the disciples of his Divine Master. 
The first church in Jerusalem is mentioned as composed 
of 120 members (Acts 1. 15); and we afterwards hear 
that our Lord was seen after his resurrection by above 
five hundred brethren at once (1 Cor. 15. 6) ; but as the 
greater number of these were Jewish converts, they 
probably shared in the expectations of their nation, and 
had received the Messiah, expecting Him as a glorious 
king and temporal deliverer (Acts 1. 6). 

His revelation of Himself and his designs, even to 
those chosen few, was very gradual,—“ as they could re¬ 
ceive it.” By very few, at first, was He really believed to 
be the Son of God. John the Baptist was one of the few 
who witnessed to this, and Nathanael, and afterwards 
Peter, to whom his Master answered, “ Flesh and blood 
hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father which 
is in heaven” (Matt. 16. 17). 

The Lord was about to commit the treasure of Divine 
revelation (no more to one earthly nation, who had 
proved unfaithful to its precepts, even while they guarded 
it sacredly down fifteen centuries to be a witness against 
themselves, but) into the care of “ a Body,” composed ot 
all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues, by 
them to be published throughout all the world. 


82 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


In the hour when He partook of his last supper with 
his disciples, and dispensed to them the bread, which 
was the image of his body to be broken for them (1 Cor. 
11. 24), and the wine, which was the image of his blood 
shed for the remission of their sins (Matt. 26. 28), He 
drew the infant church into the nearest and tenderest 0 
communion with Himself; He told them, that as the 
world had hated Him, so it would hate them; that the 
servant was not greater than his lord; therefore, that 
the time would come, when whosoever killed them 
would think that they did God service, and that if any 
man would come after him, h 



take up his cross and follow 


13 and 16). This oneness in suffering with Him was to 
prepare them for being one with Him in his glory. 

These predictions of the Saviour were, according to the 
New Testament, and subsequent church history, literally 
fulfilled to most of those who listened to them. In the 
first onset of danger, “ they all forsook him and fled,”— 
they could not, as He said to Peter, follow Him then, but 
they did “ follow Him afterwards.” 

To Peter himself our Lord said, “ When thou shalt 
be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another 
shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest 
not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should 
glorify God.” (Johnxxi. 18, 19.) Accordingly we learn 
from the very general tradition of antiquity, that Peter 
was crucified at Rome, under Nero. 

James was “ killed by the sword,” by Herod, the king, 
at Jerusalem. (Acts xii. 1, 2.) 

We have not the evidence of Scripture confirming the 
violent deaths of the other apostles and evangelists. Ac¬ 
cording to Eusebius, Paul was beheaded at Rome, under 
Nero, from anger at the conversion of his favourite cup¬ 
bearer. Dr. Cave, and some other historians, have men¬ 
tioned the early traditions, that Andrew suffered death 
in Achaia, James in Palestine, Philip in Phrygia, Bar- 


PAGAN PERSECUTIONS. 


83 


tholomew in Armenia, Thomas in India, Matthew in 
Ethiopia, Jude in Persia, Simon Zelotes at Jerusalem, 
Mark at Alexandria, and Luke in Greece. 

Ere these things happened to them, they were as 
St. Paul tells us, “ counted the offscouring of all things”; 
“ troubled on every side”; “ persecuted, but not for¬ 
saken; cast down, but not destroyed”; “always bear¬ 
ing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus”; 
“ alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake; beaten, 
stoned, in hunger and thirst, in cold and naked¬ 
ness, in stripes above measure, in prisons frequent, in 
deaths oft.” (See 1 Cor. 4, and 2 Cor. 4 and 11.)— 
Nothing could have supported them steadfast under 
these trials, but that rich effusion of the Spirit, on the 
day of Pentecost, which had caused them to perceive 
fully, that the same Jesus which was crucified, was 
both Lord and Christ. Paul received this knowledge 
afterwards, by a special revelation to himself, “ and 
straightway preached Jesus in the synagogues that He is 
the Son of God.” 

Such was the history of the apostles. In the next 
chapter we shall look for some of their successors. 

The New Testament comes down to us through a line 
of crowned heads,—but their crown was the crown of 
martyrdom. 

The first pagan persecution against the Christians was 
raised by the Emperor Nero, about thirty years after the 
crucifixion. This is mentioned by the great Roman his¬ 
torian, Tacitus. He says, that “ Rome being set on fire, 
Nero declared it was the work of the Christians, and put 
great numbers of them to death, after frightful tortures.” 
Other heathen writers mention the Christians as being 
“punished with the troublesome coat,” which was made 
like a sack, of coarse cloth, besmeared with pitch, wax, 
and sulphur; and, being dressed in this coat, they were 
hung by their chins on sharp stakes fixed in the ground, 
and then burnt— 


84 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


“ In that pitch’d shirt, in which such crowds expire, 

Chain’d to the bloody stake, and wrapp’d in fire.” 

Nero had them burnt at midnight, “ for torches,” as he 
said, “to the city.” This persecution lasted for three or 
four years, and spread through the Roman empire. An 
inscription dug up in Spain shows that the gospel had 
already penetrated that country, and that the church 
there had her martyrs. 

In the reign of Nero, Suetonius was sent into Britain, 
and attacked the Druids in their strongholds in Mona. 
He caused many of them to be burnt in the fires they 
had prepared for their expected captives, and destroyed 
their groves and altars. St. Paul was sent to Rome, 
according to Eusebius, in the second year of Nero, that 
is A.D. 56, and he stayed there, according to Luke, two 
years. The British prince, Caractacus, and his father, 
Bran, were sent to Rome in the year 51, and stayed 
there, as hostages, for seven years. It is said, in the 
Welsh “triads,” that Bran was the first who brought 
the Christian faith to the Cymry, or Welsh. He had, 
therefore, in all probability, received it from Paul at 
Rome: thus early came the pure gospel to Wales. It is 
said that Bran brought back with him three Christian 
teachers,—Illtid, an Israelite ; Cyndaf; and Arwystli, 
which is Welsh for Aristobulus, to whom Paul sends 
salutation (Rom. 16. 10). 

Tacitus likewise informs us that London at this time 
contained many merchants, and much merchandise. 

How unlike was the London of which he speaks to our 
modern London! Its very pathways were different; for 
traces of Roman floors and highways are found twenty 
feet below our present streets. There is little doubt that 
the Romans brought in their train, from the large family 
of Christian brethren in Rome, some manuscripts of the 
Gospels, some teachers of the Story of Peace among those 
men of war; and that there would be hymns sung to 
Jesus Christ in some corner of the old Roman town. 


DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 85 

Christianity, through the labours of the apostles, had 
taken deep hold of the people in the south of Europe; 
and many flourishing churches were, as we know, esta¬ 
blished in Greece. 

A. person asked Apollo how he should cause his wife to 
relinquish Christianity. “It is easier, perhaps,” replied 
the oracle, “ to write on water, or to fly into the air, than 
to reclaim her. Leave her alone in her folly, to hymn in 
a faint, mournful voice, the praises of the dead God, who 
publicly suffered death from judges of singular wisdom.” 

We must conclude with a brief notice of the dreadful 
destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, a.d. 70. The Jews 
having refused the usual tribute to the Romans, he came 
to enforce it. The city and temple were burnt, and the 
ground ploughed up, for the purpose of obtaining the 
precious things buried in the rubbish. The wicked Jews 
had said, “ His blood be on us and on our children,” and 
it was so. Never was destruction of any city or people 
so terrible. A hundred thousand were sold as slaves to 
the neighbouring nations; multitudes were transported to 
the mines in Egypt; and more than a million perished by 
famine and sword, by pestilence and crucifixion. Only 
those among the Jews who were believers in Christ were 
prepared for this final breaking up of their national 
glory, and the visible splendours of their temple—having 
learned that the priesthood of Christ took the place of all 
other priesthoods, and rendered utterly useless any further 
ceremonies or sacrifices at Jerusalem. 

They had no “continuing city,” but they sought one 
to come. The epistle of Paul to these Hebrews is full of 
consolation, especially suited to their sorrowful hearts. 

In the year 81, occurred the Domitian persecution, 
during which Christianity appears to have been carried to 
Scotland, by some of the disciples of the Apostle John. 
These persecutions, of which there are said to have been 
ten, were always the means of scattering still more widely 
the seed of the word. Wherever Christians were driven, 


86 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


they were sure to take some portions of their Scriptures 
with them. No historian, like Tacitus, celebrated their 
heroic sacrifices and secret escapes. Heroes and states¬ 
men have their records here; the saints, on high. 


CHAPTER V. 

GRADUAL CIRCULATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.-EARLIEST HERE¬ 
SIES.-UNINSPIRED TEACHERS.-PROGRESS OF THE GOSPEL.-THE 

BOOK BECOMES THE GUIDE.-EIGHT MORE PAGAN PERSECUTIONS. 

-PARTICULARS OF THESE.- DIOCLESIAN’s MEDALS.- REIGN OF 

CONSTANTINE, HIS MISTAKEN ZEAL.-THE RISE OF MONASTERIES. 

-PROGRESS OF THE PAPACY.-ALARIC.-VERSIONS OF SCRIPTURE.. 

-THE ALEXANDRINE VERSION.-FIRST PROTESTS.-VIGILANTIUS. 

-NESTORIUS.-THE NESTORIAN CHRISTIANS.-THE ARMENIAN 

CHURCH.-THE PAULICIANS.-THE ABYSSINIAN CHURCH.-THE 

BRITISH CHURCH IN WALES, IN SCOTLAND, IN IRELAND.—SUCCAT. 
-COLUMBA.-IONA. 

The first century, as we know, stands alone in its enjoy¬ 
ment, for three years and a half, of the public ministry of 
Him “who spake as never man spake,” and was Him¬ 
self the Living Word. 

The first century was also that in which the persons 
lived, who were inspired to record his sayings; and the 
living teaching of inspired persons must have been very 
precious; but it could not have been continual. The 



THE FIRST CHURCHES. 


87 


apostles were all missionaries. They went forth into all 
the world to plant churches, and seldom stayed long in 
one place. The Gospels and Epistles were only in course 
of writing, — not written, and gathered together till the 
close of the century,—therefore very few churches and still 
fewer individuals were in possession of more than separate 
manuscripts. 

The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, were not 
written, as Mr. Horne thinks, till about the time of Nero’s 
persecution, a.d. 62, and these, with the inspired Epistles 
or letters to the already founded churches, became emi¬ 
nently necessary to check the errors and heresies which, 
even then , as the apostles themselves state, had arisen in 
them. 

Take, for instance, the church at Corinth, consisting 
of many Jews, but more Gentiles: their danger, therefore, 
sometimes arose from Judish prejudice, sometimes from 
heathen wickedness; for it was out of these two classes 
that the Christian converts were purified and separated. 
This church had eminent preachers after Paul left, for 
here "Paul planted and Apollos watered”; but, neverthe¬ 
less, false teachers soon afterwards crept in, some desiring 
to continue the Jewish ceremonies, others not leading a 
pure and holy life. 

In his Epistle to the church of Ephesus, he also speaks 
of "grievous wolves entering in among them, not sparing 
the flock ”; in the Epistle to Timothy,—of " seducing 
spirits, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain 
from meats ”; while, in the second Epistle to the Thessa- 
lonians, chap. 2, he draws a full-length portrait of that 
"mystery of iniquity,” as he calls it, which he declares 
was beginning to work then, and would work on, even 
till the second coming of the Lord. 

As the inspired letters of Paul and Peter were received, 
and gradually circulated among the churches, the faithful 
obtained a standing rule whereby they might be warned 
from these false teachers and growing erils. Paul desires 


88 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


that his Epistle to the Thessalonians may be “ read to 
all the holy brethren”; and when he wrote to the Colos- 
sians, he begged they would send the letter to the Lao- 
diceans: but as, in those ages, books were all written at 
the expense of great time and labour, it is probable that 
copies of the whole Scriptures were still a rare treasure, 
and that the greatest dependence was placed on the opinion 
of bishops and rulers in the several congregations, in all 
matters of difficulty. 

When the apostles were all dead, we have no ground 
for supposing that even those who had conversed the 
most intimately with them, had received of their inspira¬ 
tion, or miraculous gifts. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, 
Colycarp, bishop of Smyrna, Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, 
were holy men living in the second century. The two 
former had conversed freely with the apostles, and they 
each were martyrs for the Christian faith. Some of their 
writings have been preserved, but they are easily dis¬ 
tinguished from the inspired writings. 

One of the sayings of Ignatius, however (who was 
thrown to wild beasts, at Rome, A. D. 107), is especially 
worthy to be remembered,—“ that in order to understand 
the will of God, he fled to the Gospels, which he believed 
not less than if Christ in the flesh had been speaking to 
him; and to the writings of the apostles, whom he 
esteemed as the presbytery of the whole church.” 

The Greek translation of the Old Testament seems to 
have been possessed by every church which the apostles 
founded in the first century; and it is well known, that 
before the middle of the second century, the New Testa¬ 
ment, also, was not only collected into a volume, but was 
read in every Christian society as a rule of faith and 
manners. Hence, before its close, Tertullian, the pres¬ 
byter of Carthage, could say of himself and his fellow- 
Christians, “We are but of yesterday, and yet we fill all 
that is called yours—your cities, islands, forts, towns, 
assemblies, camps, palaces, senate, court,” and this, in 


EARLIEST HERESIES. 


89 

spite of two more barbarous pagan persecutions under 
Trajan, and under Marcus Antoninus. Lyons, in France, 
which is said to have received the gospel through the 
merchants of Smyrna, especially shared in the fourth 
persecution; and the sustaining power of God to her 
martyrs in their sufferings seems to have been little less 
than in the times of the apostles themselves. 

Indeed, these persecutions from the pagans were bless¬ 
ings to the Christians: their Master had said to them, 
“ Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute 
you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely 
for my sake” (Matt. 5. 11). Like Israel in Egypt, of old 
time, “ the more they were afflicted, the more they mul¬ 
tiplied and grew” (Exod. 1. 12); the more they suffered, 
the more they were driven to “ hold fast the faithful 
word,” and also to “ love one another .” It was only in 
departing from these two grand simple principles of union, 
in permitting the opinions of their teachers to be set above 
the “ faithful word,” and in that striving “ who should 
be greatest,” which was not “ in honour preferring one 
another,” that “ the mystery of iniquity,” of which St. 
Paul had prophesied, arose and prospered. 

In all this they were “ without excuse”: for when the 
Christian Church had received the written Gospel, she 
was to be judged by it, as the Jewish Church of old, after 
she had received the Law. She was to be the Church of 
the Book,—the pure and perfect Book of Inspired Truth. 

The earliest heresies arose before the books of the New 
Testament were gathered together; and these chiefly con¬ 
cerned the person of the Saviour. Some enemies denied 
that He was God, and others denied that He was man,— 
both rejecting his sacrifice for sin. 

“ Heresies” at first meant errors contrary to the teach¬ 
ing of the inspired apostles; but when the teachers of the 
church were no longer inspired, the Book became the 
unfailing guide; and the real meaning of “heresy” was, 
from that time, “ error contrary to the faithful word ” 


90 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


For 300 years after the ascension of their Lord to 
heaven, the sufferings of the people of God arose from the 
world, which “ hated them ” for their witness against its 
sins, and its false gods; and this period of 300 years com¬ 
prises the ten pagan persecutions. 

Since that time, their sufferings have arisen from that 
party amongst themselves, who, assuming temporal power 
over the rest, made “ heresy” to consist in “ error con¬ 
trary to the voice of the church ”; and who, alas! in all 
ages and in all countries, have often persecuted those 
who only desired to “ hold fast the faithful word.” 

We must tell you two or three facts concerning the 
pagan persecutions, and show you, meanwhile, how the 
“ mystery of iniquity” took its rise. 

The fifth persecution was in 203, under Severus. 

The sixth in 235, under Maximin. 

The seventh, a most destructive one, in 250, under 
Decius. 

The eighth in 257, under Valerian. 

The ninth in 274, under Aurelian. 

The tenth in 303, under Dioclesian. 

The vast number of those who suffered for Christ under 
these persecutions, has never been reckoned by man; but 
they will all take rank in the “ noble army of martyrs” 
who will attend the King in his glory. We can speak in 
detail of but one or two. 

In the ninth persecution, at Cesarea, in Cappadocia, a 
child, named Cyril, showed uncommon fortitude: neither 
threats nor blows could prevent his praying to Jesus 
Christ continually. His father turned him out of doors, 
and brought him before the judge, who said, “ My child, 
i will pardon your faults, and your father shall receive 
you again, if you will worship Jupiter.” “ No,” said the 
child; “ God will receive me: I am not sorry I have been 
turned out of our house; I shall have ‘ a better mansion ’ 


THE CHILD-MARTYR.—THE SOLDIER’S CHOICE. 91 

(the dear child must have found this in the Book): I fear 
not death; it will introduce me to a better life.” He 
was bound and led to execution, with orders to bring him 
back, if the sight of the fire conquered him. “ Your fire 
and your sword,” said the young martyr, “ are nought to 
me. I go to a better house, and to more excellent riches. 
Despatch me presently, that I may enjoy them.” 

Thus, he went to his death. So you see there have 
been children in the noble army of martyrs,—children 
who loved the Book, and realized its true riches. 

At Cesarea, in Palestine, a brave and noble soldier, 
named Marinus, was a Christian. The governor of the 
city called upon him to own if his faith prevented his 
being raised to the office of centurion, on which he con¬ 
fessed his principles, and three hours were given him to 
recant them. His bishop, Theoctenes, took him by the 
hand, and led him to their church, showed him the sword 
that hung by his side, and a New Testament which he 
took from his vest. Marinus stretched out his hand, and 
clasped the Holy Scriptures. “ Hold fast,” then said The¬ 
octenes ; “ cleave close to Him whom you have chosen. 
You shall be strengthened by Him, and depart in peace.” 
After three hours he was beheaded, manfully confessing 
the faith of Christ* 

Those who worshipped idols used to put cords round 
the necks of the Christians, and drag them to the temples 
to sacrifice to their gods \ and when they would not do 
this, persecution raged against them with ceaseless fury. 
The last persecution, under Dioclesian, was the worst of 
all. It raged especially in Africa ; and from the history 
of those final tortures which the Christians endured from 
the pagans, we may learn how great was his power who 
kept his people steadfast through the age when demons 
seemed set upon them utterly to destroy them. The 
emperor gave orders to burn their books, to throw down 


* See Milner’s “ Church History . 5 


92 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


their churches, to fall upon all those who kept the Lord’s 
Day, and who would not burn incense to Jupiter. 

At the dawn of morning, on the day of the feast of 
Terminalia, a prefect of the Praetorian band entered the* 
church of Nicomedia. ' He first burned the sacred Scrip¬ 
tures, then destroyed the building, and a bloody massacre 
commenced. All that fire, boiling water, wild beasts, 
starvation, crucifixion, and pain of every sort could bring, 
to compel the Christians to sacrifice to idols, was in vain. 

In the Thebais, in Egypt, axes were so blunted with 
mangled limbs, and the executioners so tired of slaughter, 
that it was necessary to send for fresh men and new axes 
to complete the work. 

There was not a province, city, or town, in the Roman 
empire,—not a hamlet, garden, or cottage, in Rome,—in 
which pursuit for the Christians was not made : the few 
that escaped fled to the most solitary deserts. “ I have 
visited,” says Dr. Walsh, “in remote places in the east, 
caverns in the sides of nearly inaccessible mountains, 
where they endeavoured to find refuge during this dismal 
period.” In one province, alone, 150,000 Christians 
perished cruelly; sometimes 100 in a day,—17,000 in a 
month. It was intended entirely to blot out Christianity 
from the earth, and medals were struck by Dioclesian, with 
this motto, — “ Having everywhere subdued the Chris¬ 
tian superstition, and restored the worship of the gods.” 
Pillars with the above inscription were erected in Spain. 

The British Christians came in for their share of this 
persecution from the Roman empire; and Dioclesian, by 
striking the disciples of Jesus, in Britain, only increased 
their number. Many took refuge in Scotland, where, 
under the name of Culdees, they prayed for those who 
sheltered them. When the surrounding pagans saw the 
holiness of these men of God, they left their sacred oaks, 
and abandoned the worship of the sun and the serpent, to 
obey the gentle voice of the gospel. 

The Dioclesian persecution continued ten years. Houses 


THE KORAN. 


93 


were filled with Christians, and the whole number burnt 
to ashes. Companies of fifty were tied together with 
ropes, and in droves were hurried into the sea. Three 
hundred at once were suffocated in a lime-kiln. Swords, 
red-hot chairs, wheels for stretching human bodies, and 
talons of iron to tear them,—all were the instruments of 
pagan Rome against the Christians. Yet still they would 
not sacrifice to idols, and they would not give up the 
Book. “ Why,” it was said to Euplius, a Sicilian martyr, 
“ Why do you not give up the Scriptures, as the emperor 
has forbidden them?” “Because,” said he, “I am a 
Christian. Life eternal is in them. He who gives them 
up loses life eternal! ” 

So, then, these martyrs died, like the Maccabees of 
old; and Satan, weary of thus in vain assaulting the 
Church of the Book, resolved on two vast schemes against 
the Book itself. He changed Rome Pagan into Rome 
Papal. Having laid deep and broad the foundations for 
that “mystery of iniquity,” he taught her to hide the 
Book which should witness against her; and this snare 
being ready for the western world, he turned towards the 
east, and caused Mahomet to bring forth a false revela¬ 
tion,—a mock Bible,—called “ the Koran,” or, “ that 
which ought to be read.” Though this Koran was a 
tissue of profane and old wives’ fables, mixed up with 
some strange repetitions of the Scripture narratives, yet 
it bound together, in one mighty Saracen empire, all the 
wild sons of Joktan, of Ishmael, and of Esau. These 
combining to believe this Koran, and to force others to 
believe it with the sword , caused it, within the period of 
eighty years, to be acknowledged over the greater part of 
Asia and of Africa, and they threatened to seat it even in 
the heart of Europe. 

The following may serve as a specimen of comparison 
between the Bible and the Koran for those who might 
never see the latter:— 



94 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Bible. 

I was envious at the foolish, 
when I saw the prosperity of the 

wicked.Thus my heart 

was grieved fPsalm 73. 3, 21). 


But when thou doest alms, 
let not thy left hand know what 
thy right hand doeth: that thine 
alms may be in secret: and thy 
Father, which seeth in secret, 
himself shall reward thee open¬ 
ly (Matt. 6. 3, 4). 


These both were cast alive 
into a lake of fire burning with 
brimstone (Rev. 19. 20). 


Koran. 

Cast not thine eyes on the 
good things which we have be¬ 
stowed on several of the unbe¬ 
lievers, so as to covet the same; 
neither be thou grieved on their 
account. 

If ye make your alms to ap¬ 
pear, it is well: but if ye conceal 
them, and give them unto the 
poor, this will be better for you, 
and will atone for your sins; and 
God is well informed of that 
which ye do (ch. 2, p. 30). 

Verily, those who disbelieve 
our signs, we will surely cast 
to be broiled in hell fire : so oft¬ 
en as their skins shall be well 
burned, we will give them other 
skins in exchange, that they 
may taste the sharper torment: 
for God is mighty and wise. 


The rise of Mahomedanism, however, did not take 
place until the seventh century after Christ, and it then 
arose and conquered, “ because of the heresies that di¬ 
vided, and the corruptions which disgraced, Christianity.” * 

We must see how these heresies and corruptions pro¬ 
gressed by degrees. 

After the Dioclesian persecution, came the reign of 
Constantine, who favoured instead of persecuting the 
Christians. When the bishops met in council, the question 
as to who should be greatest, was a constant source of dis¬ 
cord among them. The Bishops of Borne, Antioch, and 
Alexandria, had already claimed to be regarded as su¬ 
perior to the rest; and the Bishop of Borne declared it his 
right to be the first of all, as being the bishop of the 
first city in the empire. 

Constantine endeavoured to settle their differences, but 


Forster’s “Mahomedanism Unveiled. 1 



CONSTANTINE. 


95 

only caused further discontent to one party, the Donatists, 
whom he banished ; and you will grieve to hear that the 
pagans watched the contending Christians with triumph¬ 
ant delight, and even held them up to ridicule in their 
theatres : the voice of the conflicting church made itself 
heard above the voice of the “ faithful word,” for that had 
said, “ Let brotherly love continue.” 

Constantine called a great council at Nice, in Bithynia, 
composed of 300 bishops, where a “confession of faith” 
was drawn up, which is still the foundation of that called, 
in the Church of England, “ the Nicene Creed.” At this 
council it appears to have been proposed, that the clergy 
should be forbidden to marry; but it was not agreed 
upon, as Paphnutius, an African bishop, declared it was 
unscriptural. 

The famous controversy respecting the observance of 
Easter was settled at the council of Nice,—Constantine 
declaring, that “ it was not for the dignity of the church 
to follow that most hateful of all people the Jews, in 
their time of celebrating the passover.” 

The Emperor Constantine was a native of Britain, and 
his mother, Helena, is said to have been a British princess. 
They set themselves, with ignorant, but probably good 
intent, to increase the worldly greatness of the Christians, 
to whom Christ, their Master, had said, “ My kingdom 
is not of this world” (John 18. 36), and whom he had 
described, as the men “ which thou gavest me out of the 
world” (John 17. 6). 

The Empress Helena visited Jerusalem, and erected a 
church over the supposed sepulchre of Christ, and caused 
a number of other magnificent churches to be built. As 
a reward for her labours, she was said to have discovered 
the wood of the “ true cross”; and with this and the 
“holy earth” from Jerusalem (to which all access was 
forbidden to the Jews), began the long list of relics which 
have been worshipped ever since, down to the “ holy coat 
of Treves.” 


96 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


The bones of the martyrs suddenly became of immense 
value; and out of the very ruins of his former cruelties 
did the “ prince of this world” cause to be built up his 
new and enduring palace of papal superstition. 

Constantine next wished the different ranks of bishops 
in the church to be distinguished by particular dresses, 
and presented the Bishop of Rome with the pall,—a 
splendid robe, originally a part of the dress of the em¬ 
perors ; and the crosier and mitre were adopted at the 
same time. 

Everything was done to reconcile the pagans to Chris¬ 
tianity. Martyrs and saints were honoured in place of 
Jupiter and Yenus,—and feasts and dances were held on 
the graves of the martyrs. 

Monasteries also were greatly encouraged : these were 
the places of residence for monks and nuns. Constantine 
showed the greatest respect for those who willingly re¬ 
treated from the world, and devoted themselves to a life 
of solitude and hardship. Anthony, the Egyptian, had 
formed the first household of monks ; and Paul, a young 
Christian of the same country, had taken refuge from 
persecution in the deserts, and was probably the first 
hermit, A.D. 253. At the close of the fourth century, 
27,000 monks and nuns were to be found in Egypt alone. 

It must be admitted, that Constantine did some good 
service to the great cause of Christianity; but, judging 
of his actions by the light of an open Bible, there are 
reasons to fear that in many instances his zeal was “ with¬ 
out knowledge.” He did not act, in all things, according 
to the “mind of Christ”; and the result of his efforts 
to extend the Christian faith was to increase the pride of 
the spiritual rulers, and to load the church with worldly 
pomp and grandeur. 

Among the monks, no doubt, were many godly per¬ 
sons who took refuge in monasteries, from the evils 
abounding around them; but they forgot that their 
Master had said, “ I pray not that thou shouldest take 


PROGRESS OF THE PAPACY 


97 


them out of the world , but that thou shouldest keep them 
from the evil ”; and so, by degrees, they built up a vast 
system which rests on no Scriptural foundation. An¬ 
thony, the first monk, died, aged 105, leaving little be¬ 
hind him but two sheepskins, which were sent to two 
bishops as legacies. 

At first thirty or forty monks lived together in a range 
of low, narrow huts ; then a wall was built around these; 
th'en each community by degrees erected a church for 
itself, a hospital, and a library, and secured a reservoir 
of water. They slept in a rough blanket, on the bare 
ground ; their dress was a coarse linen shirt and a sheep¬ 
skin, besides a cowl or hood to protect them from be¬ 
holding vanity; they lived chiefly on vegetables, walked 
out two and two, and when they returned home, were 
forbidden to speak of what they had heard. 

When their minds, in spite of all this fencing off from 
the world, wandered back to it, they tried to curb them 
b) discipline. Some began to wear crosses, chains, and 
collars of heavy iron; but these could not chain the 
mind. Some passed years without speaking, days with¬ 
out food, and nights without sleep; others spent their 
energies better, and employed themselves day after day 
in copying manuscripts; and the best fruit of their labours 
was the multiplication of copies of the Scriptures. It is 
certain that many received them into their hearts as they 
copied them, and were thus kept “ pure,” in spite of the 
folly and corruption of the system under which they lived. 

It was the rule of the monks to pay blind submission 
to the abbot of their monastery. If he told them to 
water a barren staff for years, they obeyed as if they ex¬ 
pected it to grow into a living tree! 

At first, these monasteries were places which the monks 
might enter or quit as they pleased; but this soon ceased, 
and they became prisons which never yielded up their prey. 
The abbot, who heard their daily confession of sin, control¬ 
led them in mind and body, punished them, and directed 

8 


98 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


them as he pleased; and these bands of men, thus dis¬ 
ciplined, became very powerful, and established an in¬ 
fluence, by no means wholesome, over the Church of God. 

You have heard, perhaps, of Alaric the king of the 
Goths, who in the fifth century came down with his 
mighty army upon Rome, and extorted from it a ransom 
worthy of its enormous wealth. Did you ever hear of 
his grave ? His army caused their captives to turn aside 
the course of the river Busentinus, to make it, and then, 
when they had buried him, slew upon the spot all who 
had been engaged in the work, that none might tell the 
secret,—the waters being restored to their usual channel. 

But that grave shall not be hidden, when earth, and 
sea, and river, shall give up their dead. These Goths 
caused the downfall of the imperial Roman power; yet, 
while this decayed, the priestly power in the same old city 
went on increasing and increasing, till Rome in a new form 
reigned over all the kings of the earth. Leo, surnamed the 
Great, bishop of Rome, laid the foundations of the papal 
dominion, at the time the imperial power received its deadly 
wound. He received, from the Emperor Valentinian, 
authority over all the bishops of the western empire of 
Rome, and sent his legate, or messenger, to inquire into all 
“ heresies'’ at the court of the eastern empire also. He 
endeavoured to prevent the marriage of the clergy, and to 
enforce the practice of confession to the priests. He greatly 
increased the pomp of religious services : incense was 
burned, holy water sprinkled, and tapers lighted at mid¬ 
day, to frighten away the evil spirits. Leo died, A. D. 461 

To trace, however, the growing development of the 
apostasy in the sixth and seventh centuries, only concerns 
us as far as protest was made against increasing evils, by 
the Church of the Book,—by those who still were deter¬ 
mined “ to hold fast the faithful word” and to listen to 
the Written Voice of God, rather than to the voice of 
this great hierarchy, which claimed for itself such wide 
supremacy. 


VERSIONS OF THE SCRIPTURE. 


99 


It is a delightful task to follow the pilgrimage of 
Divine Truth from land to land, even through what were 
called the Dark Ages. The fire, kindled from heaven, like 
that on the Tabernacle altar, was never to go out; and 
it never did. Amid all the destructions, persecutions, 
and corruptions, the sacred books were continually copied 
and re-copied; and we must now particularly examine 
into what languages. 

From the beginning of the first century, the Latin 
language was gradually becoming more general than the 
Greek, and it might soon have been called the language 
of the Western Church. In the early ages, as soon as 
any one found a Greek copy of a Gospel or an Epistle, 
and thought himself able, he began to translate it. Many 
of these translations were imperfect, but one called the 
Old Italic was the best: this was made in the second cen¬ 
tury, and comprised both the Old and New Testaments. 

The word of God was now existing in five languages, 
viz. the Old Hebrew ; the Chaldee, made for the Babylo¬ 
nian Jews; the Greek, or Septuagint; a Syriac version, 
which had been made, at the beginning of the second 
century, for the Syrian Christians; and the Latin, as 
above mentioned. 

Two of these translations from the Hebrew were made 
before the Christian era, and two after it. In the fourth 
century, a learned monk, named Jerome, translated 
afresh the Old Testament from the Hebrew into Latin: 
his version is called the “ Latin Vulgate,” and was pro¬ 
nounced by the council of Trent to be the only one 
“esteemed authentic” by the Roman-Catholic Church. 
Numerous manuscript copies of these versions have been 
preserved to our times; and now they are printed, and 
have been diligently compared with one another, by 
learned men; and, with the exception of a few trifling 
differences, they present to us, in five different languages, 
the same text, and the same number of books. 

These three sister versions, the Chaldee, the Greek, 
and the Syriac, after they were made, were separated for 


100 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


many hundred years. The Chaldee version, carefully pre¬ 
served by the Jews, was unknown to Christians during 
the early ages of the church ; and the Christians of Syria 
knew as little of the Greek Bible as the Greeks did of the 
Syriac. The Syriac and Chaldee were for the East; the 
Greek spread over the West, and was again translated 
into Latin. The Latin Bible was not borrowed from the 
Syriac or Chaldee, yet, when brought together, they all 
closely agree, though the work of enemies to one another, 
of Christians and Jews, Eastern and Western Christians, 
Palestinian Jews and Alexandrian Jews. These are the 
great roots of all other translations. 

The copies from these were innumerable: they were 
copied by thousands who regarded them with heartfelt re¬ 
verence and affection ; and there were besides multitudes 
in the religious houses, who, influenced only by super¬ 
stition, still thought it a work of superlative merit to 
execute a fair copy of the Scriptures, or any part of them. 

There is, in the library of the British Museum, one of 
the most valuable manuscripts of the Bible, in Greek, 
called the “Alexandrine.” It was sent in the year 1628 
as a present to King Charles I., by Cyril, the patriarch 
of Constantinople. It was probably written at Alexan¬ 
dria, by Thecla, a noble Egyptian lady, in the fourth 
century, a little after the council of Nice. Thecla was 
afterwards martyred. This precious manuscript is written 
in uncial or capital characters like these— 


John 1. 1. 

0MXf>XH HMOXOmCKXIOAOroCH 
TrpOCTOMeNKXleCHNOXOrOC' 


(Literally translated.) 

INTHEBEGINNINGWASTHEWORDANDTHEWORDWAS 

WITHGD-ANDGDWASTHEWORI). 


It is so much prized, that the trustees of the British Mu¬ 
seum have had it stereotyped at the expense of thirty thou- 


FIRST PROTESTS. 


101 


sand pounds, and have presented a copy to all the principal 
libraries in the kingdom, so that it can never be lost. 

Throughout the period of which we have been speak¬ 
ing, persons were raised up from time to time to contend 
for different portions of Divine Truth; and one of the 
most remarkable of these, in the East, was Yigilantius, 
a presbyter, who went from Gaul into Palestine, and 
preached boldly against the common errors. This oc¬ 
curred in the fifth century. Let us see what he then 
had occasion to condemn. He preached— 

Against the worship of relics; 

Against pilgrimages to holy places; 

Against prayers to saints; 

Against severe fasting and mortification; 

Against “forbidding to marry.” 

He was, in fact, one of the early Protestants,* as was 
Nestorius, a Syrian, and bishop of Constantinople, who 
strongly objected to the title of “Mother of God,” as 
applied to the Virgin Mary. It does not appear that he 
wished in any measure to take from the divine dignity of 
Christ, by rebuking this expression; but he was accused 
of doing so. The Bishop of Rome combined with others 
against him; and, by a council held at Ephesus, A.D. 431, 
he was pronounced accursed, and banished. “ Con¬ 
demned,” it is said, “ without a hearing, he died in one 
of the oases of the Egyptian desert; and all who held his 
views were expelled from the church.” But the Nes- 
torian Christians increased in spite of the imperial laws; 
and among them may be traced some of the brightest 
servants of God; for their separation from Rome preserved 
them from many errors. From the time of Nestorius, 
images and pictures of the “Virgin and Child” became 
common. 

* His Life has been written by a clergyman, to whom we also owe 
a very interesting account of the protesting church in the Pied¬ 
montese valleys,—the Rev. W. Grilly. 


102 


THE BOOR AND ITS STORY. 


In the sixth and seventh centuries, these Nestorians 
were remarkable as missionaries of the Truth : they con¬ 
tinued entirely independent of the systems of Rome or of 
Constantinople, and had a patriarch of their own at 
Seleucia. They abounded in Chaldea, Persia, and Assyria, 
and carried the gospel into the remotest and most bar¬ 
barous parts of Asia, and even into China. Their man¬ 
ners were pure; they never interfered in political revo¬ 
lutions, and remained as witnesses for God, even when 
Mahomedanism overcame Romanism. In the eighth 
century they sent missionaries through the immense and 
savage tracts of ancient Scythia, or modem Russia, and 
even to Siberia and Nova Zembla. 

You must take particular notice of the Nestorians, 
because they yet exist: they have never ceased to exist: 
they tried to spread the knowledge of Christ through all 
the dark regions of the East in every successive century; 
and there must always have been not a little genuine 
godliness among them. In the thirteenth century, they 
had many churches in Tartary, India, Persia, and China; 
and the pure light of their “witness” only appeared to be 
dying out in the fifteenth century, when the bright day 
of the Reformation was about to dawn upon the world. 
When we come to the modem triumphs of the Bible—to 
the last fifty years of our story—we shall have delightful 
news to tell you of these old Nestorians. In the mean¬ 
time, we must leave them where Mr. Layard, the dis¬ 
coverer of Nineveh, found them a year or two since.— 
within sight of the spotless, snowy pe’ak of Ararat, in the 
valleys of Armenia, once inhabited by the only indepen¬ 
dent Christian tribes of Asia, and still the dwelling-places 
of this remnant of a primitive church. 

We must now lead you to the neighbouring district of 
Armenia. In the fifth century, also, Mesrob, the inventor 
of the Armenian alphabet, presented his countrymen with 
a translation of the Bible, made from the Septuagint. A 



THE PAULICIANS. 


103 


church arose here which has likewise existed through the 
dark ages, though it was by no means so pure as the Nes- 
torian Church. Its teachers lived unmarried, and adopted 
the seven sacraments of Rome, but did not admit the 
supremacy of the pope. Like the Nestorians, also, they 
obstinately rejected images and pictures; and this sepa¬ 
rates them from the Greek Church to this day. 

The Greek Church, so called, is in most respects like 
the Roman Church, though it does not acknowledge the 
pope as its head, but owns in his stead the patriarch of 
Constantinople. Its doctrines differ widely from those of 
the Protestant, and it acknowledges the decrees of the 
councils for its rule of faith. Few, even of its clergy, 
possessed any part of the sacred books; and its people 
were not allowed to read them. 

In Armenia arose the sect of the Paulicians, the origin 
of which is very interesting. In a.d. 660 , a deacon of a 
Christian Church, who had been in captivity among the 
Saracens, in Syria, was returning home through the little 
town of Mananalis, in Armenia, where he was kindly re¬ 
ceived by a respectable inhabitant, named Constantine, 
and entertained some days at his house. 

In return for his kindness, he presented his host with 
two manuscripts which he had brought out of Syria,—the 
four Gospels, and the Epistles of St. Paul. From the 
presentation of this, at that time, rare and costly gift, we 
may infer what had been their conversation together. 
For the first time Constantine had an opportunity of 
studying the precious truth for himself, and it soon cast 
out of his mind some errors, called Manichean, which he 
had adopted. He burnt his bad books, and declared he 
would thenceforth study nothing but the Gospels and 
Epistles. He began to teach, as well as to read for him¬ 
self ; and his disciples instructed others around them. 
He lived for twenty-seven years, spreading his new 
opinions all around Cibossa, to which place he had re¬ 
moved. 


104 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


His followers increased so rapidly, that a Greek empe¬ 
ror sent to have him stoned, and Simeon, the messenger, 
caused his own disciples to perform the deed; but after¬ 
wards, Simeon himself, like Saul of Tarsus, repented, 
being converted by beholding the grace of God in the 
noble martyr and his disciples, who suffered after him. 
Simeon, having united himself with the Paulicians, 
preached among them for some time at Cibossa, and also 
died a martyr. It is recorded that he was seized, with 
his followers, and all were burnt in one vast pile, with 
the exception of one Paulus, and his two sons, who were 
sent to Constantinople to be questioned. 

These three afterwards escaped, and fleeing again to 
Mananalis, lived and flourished under the protection of 
the Saracens for thirty years : their disciples increased 
greatly, and were called Paulicians. They were said, in 
the language of their enemies,—to deny “ the orthodox 
faith,”—not to adore the mother of God,—not to partake 
of the bread as made Christ,—and to have abandoned the 
Eastern Church, which they certainly had, for they be¬ 
longed to the Church of the Book; therefore the imperial 
government persecuted them. The Empress Theodora, 
who is called a saint in the Greek Church, declared she 
would cut off the Paulicians, root and branch, unless she 
could bring them to the true faith. A hundred thousand 
persons are said to have perished by her orders : they 
were hung, crucified, burnt, or drowned, and all their 
property went into the imperial treasury. 

Notwithstanding these persecutions, the Paulicians 
continued to increase through the knowledge of the Gos¬ 
pels. An aged woman of this sect was instrumental in 
the conversion of Sergius, afterwards a great propagator 
of their opinions, only by putting the Gospels into his 
hands. For thirty-four years he was occupied in spread¬ 
ing the truths they contained, through every city and 
province he could reach : his own words are, “ From 
the east to the west, and from the north to the south, 


ABYSSINIA. 


105 

have I been proclaiming the gospel, and labouring on my 
knees.” 

His efforts were so successful, that he was said by the 
Roman Church to be Antichrist, and to be producing the 
great apostasy foretold by St. Paul. It is agreed by the 
best historians that the Paulicians were transplanted into 
Thrace, penetrated Bulgaria, were introduced into Italy 
and France, and, under various names, especially that of 
Albigenses , spread through Europe. * 

The gospel in Abyssinia or Ethiopia has a very ancient 
history,—even from the apostolic age, when it must have 
been carried there by the minister of its queen, Candace. 
You remember he had been worshipping at Jerusalem, 
and was, as he returned home in his chariot, reading the 
roll of the Prophet Isaiah, when he was met by the Apostle 
Philip, who asked him “ if he understood what he was 
reading”; and he, confessing his ignorance, desired Philip 
to come up and teach him. During their journey Philip 
preached unto him Jesus, having been sent to meet him 
for this purpose, as we learn, by the Spirit of God (see 
Acts 8). This teaching issued in his “believing with all 
his heart,” and his immediate baptism ; and, it is said, 
“ he went on his way rejoicing.” 

“It is impossible that this Ethiopian, thus enlightened, 
could be silent,” says Milner, “ when he returned home”;, 
but this is the end of our Scripture light upon the subject. 

We next hear concerning Abyssinia, that Frumentius, 
after residing some years in Egypt, was ordained as Bishop 
of Meroe, the chief city in Abyssinia, by Athanasius, the 
patriarch of Alexandria, about a.d. 330. 

When a Greek merchant, named Cosmas, who wrote a 
book called “ Christian Topography,” in which he men¬ 
tions the inscriptions on the rocks of Sinai,f visited Abys- 

* Sharon Turner’s “History of England,” vol. v., p. 119. 
f See page 19. 



106 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


sinia, in a.d. 525, he says it was completely a Christian 
country, and well provided both with ministers and 
churches. Mr. Salt, a modern traveller in Abyssinia, de¬ 
scribes the remains of ancient churches hewn out of the solid 
rock, the date of which he assigns to the sixth century. 

After this time, very little was known of the country 
till the Portuguese entered it, in 1490, and found there a 
body of Christians, who had received the Holy Scriptures 
in the ancient Ethiopic version, or Gheez language, made 
from the Greek Septuagint. Mr. Bruce, a traveller in 
these remote regions, brought with him a complete copy 
to Europe: the apocryphal books, were, however, inter¬ 
mixed in this version with the canonical. 

You must bear these facts in mind respecting Abyssinia, 
because in a future page we shall have very interesting 
particulars to relate of the translation of the Scriptures 
into Amharic, which is the modem language spoken in 
this country. This ancient Christian Church had mixed 
many errors with its faith; and no wonder; for it had 
fallen under the influence of the Jesuit missionaries from 
the Portuguese; and a law had been made that whoever 
dared to translate the Holy Scriptures from Gheez into 
Amharic, should die. 


But, as we said we would follow the pilgrimage of 
Divine Truth from land to land, we must now leave the 
churches of the East, who maintained their long and 
arduous struggle against the corruptions of the West, and 
recur to the early progress of the gospel, in Great Britain 
and Ireland. 

As Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, early in the second cen¬ 
tury, mentions the existence of churches among the Celtic 
nations, and Tertullian, about a.d. 200, says, that “ those 
parts of the British Isles which were unapproached by 
the Romans were yet subject to Christ,” these parts, which 
were most probably the mountainous seclusions of Wales, 
and perhaps of Scotland, must have received the faith, 



PELAGIUS. 


107 


and doubtless the Old Testament, from Bran, the father of 
Caractacus, and probable disciple of the Apostle Paul,* 
and the Old Testament would cause them to inquire for 
the New, as, by degrees, it was written. At any rate, 
Christian Churches were formed, and these shared in the 
Dioclesian persecution, a.d. 303. Two martyrs of this age, 
Julius and Aaron, were honoured in the British Church, 
which is recorded to have converted many of the ancient 
bards, or Druids, from their old patriarchal but corrupted 
religion, to the gospel of Jesus Christ; and Divine wor¬ 
ship continued for awhile to be performed in the ancient 
Druidical circles. One of these is at Carn-y-groes, in 
Glamorganshire, where also stands an ancient cross. 

Pelagius, who was a British teacher from the monas¬ 
tery at Bangor-Iscoed, in a.d. 400, went to the continent 
and began to preach strange doctrine. Dr. D’Aubigne 
says, “It does not appear that he had a bad intention, but 
he had many of the old Druidical notions; and, finding 
fault with the moral indifference of the Eastern Christians, 
he denied the doctrine of original sin, and said that if 
man made use of all his natural powers, he could become 
perfect.” This was not preaching Christ Jesus : and the 
venerable historian, Bede, tells us, “ the British Churches 
refused to receive this doctrine : they sent for two bishops 
from Armorica (now called Brittany), Germanus and 
Lupus, who came to their aid, and those who had wan¬ 
dered returned into the ‘ way of truth.’ ” 

The Dioclesian persecution, in a.d. 303, as we have 
seen, drove many of the Christians to Scotland, and to 
the island of Iona, where they built a church, called the 
Church of our Saviour, whose walls, it is said, still exist 
among the stately ruins of a later age. One particular 
portion appears to be of primitive architecture. 

But we must now turn to Ireland;—for that country 
also afforded the terrified British clergy an asylum from 
the Dioclesian persecution. 


* See page 84. 


108 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


In the year 388, a captive youth, named Succat, sixteen 
years of age, the child of Scotch parents, was sent into the 
green pastures of Ireland to keep swine. Here, as he led 
his herds over the mountains and through the forests, by 
night and by day, he called to mind the instructions of a 
pious mother, which, up to this time of his distress, he 
had forgotten ; and when afterwards rescued from his cap¬ 
tivity, he considered it his duty to carry the gospel to the 
people of that country, where he had himself found Christ 
Jesus. This boy, Succat, was afterwards known as St. 
Patrick, and sainted by the Romish Church. 

He collected the pagan tribes in the fields, by beat of 
drum, and there narrated to them in their own tongue the 
history of the Son of God. Ere long many souls were 
converted, and the Druidical hymns changed into canticles 
to Christ. This St. Patrick is said to have evangelised 
Ireland, and after that period it was known by the name 
of “ The Isle of Saints.” 

Meantime the state of the British Churches was most 
afflicting. The warlike Anglo-Saxons, who were pagan 
idolaters, slew immense numbers of the Christians, though 
many hid themselves in Wales, and in the wild moors 
of Northumberland and Cornwall, and many fled into 
Brittany, in France, whose inhabitants still speak a lan¬ 
guage resembling the ancient British or Welsh. 

In one of the churches formed in Ireland by Succat’s 
preaching, there arose, two centuries after him, a pious 
man, named Columba, in whose veins flowed royal blood. 
He resolved to repay to the country of Succat what 
Succat had imparted to his,—to go and preach the word 
of God in Scotland. With some of his companions, he 
constructed a frail coracle of osiers and skins. “ In this 
rude boat,” says D’Aubigne, “ they embarked in the year 
565, and the little missionary band reached in safety the 
waters of the Hebrides.” 

They landed in Iona, and found the Christian Culdees, 
and also some Druids. The poor Druids were now to 
cede the ancient college of their order and the burial- 


IONA. 


109 

place of their kings to another race, for whose sake, also, 
this wondrous little spot of earth is very famous. 

Conal, the Scottish king, granted Iona to Columba, 
and it became “ the Missionary Isle,” “ the light of the 
Western world.” 

Columba was really a holy man: he lived as in the sight 
of God; he mortified the flesh, perhaps, unnecessarily,— 
sleeping on the ground, with a stone for his pillow; but 
he prayed and read, he wrote and taught, he preached, 
and he redeemed the time. He went from hut to hut, 
and also from kingdom to kingdom. Precious manu¬ 
scripts were conveyed to Iona; the holy word of God 
was studied there, and many received through faith the 
salvation which is in Christ Jesus. Columba maintained 
that it was the Holy Ghost which made a servant of 
God. 

When the youth of Scotland assembled round their 
elders, on these wild shores, they were taught that the 
Holy Scriptures are the only rule of faith. “ Throw aside 
all merit of works, and look for salvation to the grace of 
God alone.” “It is better to keep your heart pure before 
God, than to abstain from meats.” “ One alone is your 
head, — Jesus Christ.” “Bishops and presbyters are 
equal: they should be the husbands of one wife, and 
have their children in subjection.” 

These were Protestant doctrines. The sages of Iona 
knew nothing of the bread in the Lord’s Supper being 
changed into the actual body of Christ; they did not 
withdraw the cup from the laity; knew nothing of con¬ 
fession to priests, or prayers to the dead, or tapers, or 
incense. They celebrated Easter on a different day from 
Rome, and the supremacy of the pope was unknown. 

When the college in this islet sent out its missionaries, 
they knelt in the chapel of Icolmkill, and were set apart 
by the hands of the elders: they were called bishops, but 
remained obedient to the elder of Iona. 

“ Iona and Bangor,” continues the modem historian oi’ 
the Reformation, “ possessed a more lively faith than the 


110 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


city of the Caesars; and Britain in the sixth century was 
faithful in planting the standard of Christ in the heart of 
Europe.” 

Columba is said to have possessed a most engaging ad¬ 
dress, a cheerful countenance, and a most powerful and 
commanding voice, so that he could be distinctly heard 
at a mile’s distance when he chanted psalms. He appears 
to have been a man of much prayer, and to have earnestly 
believed that God answers prayer; and in the strength of 
this belief he did many mighty works. The historian, 
Bede, tells us, that he and his disciples brought religion 
at that time into such repute, that a monk was every¬ 
where received as God’s servant. Columba was remark¬ 
able for his humility: he said that “no man ought to be 
praised till he had reached the goal, and finished his 
course.” He greatly loved the study of the Scriptures, 
and was sometimes engaged for whole days and nights 
in exploring their dark and difficult passages, with fasting 
and prayer. It is said of him, that “ when any offended 
himself he forgave him,—when any offended God he 
prayed for him.” 

The isle of Iona continued to be, under Columba, as it 
always had been, the burial place of kings. Its “ fair 
kirkyard” contains the tombs of forty-eight crowned 
Scottish kings, four Irish kings, the tombs of the kings 
of Norway, and the most part of the lords of the isles. 

These tombs are flat stones, with many an ancient 
carving sunk in the green sward. Dr. Johnson called 
this, “ awful ground.” In the corner of the ruined ca¬ 
thedral are the “black stones,” held so sacred by the 
Highlanders, that an oath sworn on them was always 
kept. Many beautiful crosses were broken or carried off 
at the Deformation. Spottiswoode says, that in Columba’s 
own lifetime, he founded 100 monasteries, and 365 
churches, and ordained 3000 monks. He died in Iona, 
after presiding there for thirty-four years; and his fol¬ 
lowers, until the year 716, protested against the Church 
of Rome, and influenced the whole of Europe. Columba 


IONA. 



Ill 

wrote to Pope Boniface, with, great freedom: “It is your 
fault if you have deviated from the true faith.” Clement 
of Iona wrote a book against images in the end of the 
eighth century. 


Iona. 

‘ Lone Isle! though storms have round thy turrets rode, 
And their red shafts have sear’d thy marble brow, 
Thou wert the temple of the Living God,— 

Teaching earth’s millions at thy shrine to bow. 

Though desolation wraps thy glories now, 

Still thou wilt be a marvel through all time 
For what thou hast been : for the dead who rot 
Around the fragments of thy towers sublime, 

Once taught the world, and sway’d the realm of thought* 
And ruled the warriors of each northern clime. 

Dear art thou for thy glories long gone by : 

Virtue and truth, religion’s self must die, 

Ere thou can’st perish from the chart of fame, 

Or darkness shroud the halo of thy name ” 

Glasgow. D. M. 







112 


CHAPTER VL 

THE FALL OF ENGLAND’S PROTESTANISM.-AUGUSTINE’S MISSION- 

—BEDE,—KING ALFRED.-GENERAL IGNORANCE.-THE VAliDOIS 

CHURCH.—EARLY PROTESTS.—CLAUDE OF TURIN.—VAUDOIS COL¬ 
PORTEURS.-WALDO.-HIS TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE.—SKETCH 

OF THE VAUDOIS PEOPLE.-THEIR KNOWLEDGE OF SCRIPTURE.- 

INNOCENT III.—THE INQUISITION.-TORMENTS.—STEADFASTNESS. 

-THE VOWS OF LUZERNA.-THE BOHEMIAN CHRISTIANS. 

In the last chapter we gave you an outline of the early 
history of the Church of the Book, both in the East and 
the West, after the Christian era. We can now only sadly 
tell you, that in England, in the seventh century, she fell 
under the po wer of the church of the popes, who would 
have all the world to receive their laws. She received 
presents from Rome of the relics of the Apostles Peter and 
John,—“pretended fragments of their chains,” and em¬ 
blems of her own. Pope Gregory desired her conversion 
from simple faith in Christ and his word, to faith in the 
Romish Church and its ceremonies, and he sent the arch¬ 
bishop, Augustine, to Canterbury, to convert her. This 
Augustine, who came to England in 597, must by no 
means be confounded with Augustine, bishop of Hippo, 
born 354, the son whose soul was given to his mother’s 
prayers, after perseverance on her part, and apparently in 
vain, for thirty years, and who was, in most respects, 
“ the highest ornament of the African Church.” 

At that time there existed at Bangor-Iscoed, in Wales, 
a monastery of 3000 members, governed by faithful 
teachers. Augustine first met its bishop, Dionoth, under 


THE VENERABLE BEDE. 


113 

an oak, at Wigornia,* and endeavoured by persuasion 
to cause him and his flock to acknowledge the pope; 
but this meeting and a second one were in vain. Even to 
a third appeal, the Britons said, “they knew no other 
Master but Christ.” 

“ Then,” said Augustine, “if you will not unite with 
us to show the Saxons the way of life, you shall receive 
from them the stroke of death.” “ Argument had failed,” 
says D’Aubigne ; “now for the sword.” 

Shortly after the death of Augustine, Edelfrid, an 
Anglo-Saxon king, and a heathen, destroyed 1200 of these 
Christians, in the act of praying to God against his vio¬ 
lence, and razed Bangor, the chief seat of Christian learn¬ 
ing, to the ground. 

Iona, too, the last citadel of liberty, gave up her free¬ 
dom ere long, through Romish persuasion ; and then came 
a dark night of superstition which lasted many hundred 
years. 

In English history, while this night endured, we must 
now only look for the few earnest souls that here and 
there awoke, and searched the Scriptures even under 
popish bondage, and then turn for awhile to the most 
interesting history of the V:audois Church in the valleys 
of Piedmont. 

The earliest translation of the New Testament, into the 
tongue of the common people of England, was made by 
“the Venerable Bede,” whose “Church History” we have 
often quoted. He lived in the monastery of Jarrow, in 
Durham, and was a very learned monk, having uncom¬ 
mon skill in Greek and Hebrew. He studied the Scrip¬ 
tures diligently and prayerfully. He referred the Arch¬ 
bishop of York to Titus and Timothy, for rules of conduct 
to be required from Christian ministers, and he evidently 
knew himself what it was to “fight the good fight of 
faith,” by strength supplied from God. 


* Worcester. 


114 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


In his last hour he was engaged in dictating to one of 
his disciples the last verse of the 20th chapter of John. 
“It is finished, master,” said the scribe : “It is finished,” 
replied the dying saint; “lift up my head, let me sit in 
my cell, in the place where I have so often prayed; and 
now, glory be to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy 
Ghost”; and with these words his spirit fled. 

Could it have taken flight more happily than in the 
act of translating the word of God? 

Would you like to read a piece of Anglo-Saxon, as it 
was spoken and written in the seventh century? “Fader 
uren thu arth in heofnum, sic gehalgud noma thin; to 
cymeth ric thin.” “Our Father who art in heaven, hal¬ 
lowed be thy name; thy kingdom come.” 

We should scarcely know this old Anglo-Saxon now for 
English; but this was English in the days of King Alfred. 

Alfred the Great, who left behind him an undying 
name, whether as a Christian or a king, was also a trans¬ 
lator of the Scriptures. His early education was scanty: 
no master could be found in all Wessex to teach him 
Latin, when twelve years old; but when he grew up and 
reigned, he was called “the wisest man in all England.” 
Being aware of his own ignorance, and seing that igno¬ 
rance still deeper prevailed among his people, he drew 
around him capable teachers. 

Asser, the first scholar in Wales, and a man of piety, 
after much persuasion, agreed to live at his court for six 
months in the year, and became his warmest friend. 
Alfred learned Latin of Asser, by carrying in his bosom 
a little manuscript book, in which every quotation of 
Scripture that pleased him was put down by his friend, 
and translated. These the king constantly studied, writ¬ 
ing them also himself. He turned Bede’s valuable His¬ 
tory into English, and attempted to translate the whole 
Bible, though he only accomplished a portion of it. 

He was. engaged upon a version of the Psalms, at the 
time of his death. He has left behind him some manu- 


THE VAUDOIS VALLEYS. 


115 


scripts, preserved as treasures in museums, and a most 
fragrant memory. 

We shall now pass to the Swiss valleys, and the Wal- 
denses. 

So early as a.d. 290, the Yaudois valleys were honoured 
with a martyr: this was in the times of pagan persecution, 
in the village of St. Legond, between Luzerna and San 
Martino. 

In a.d. 314, the arrogance of Sylvester, bishop of Rome, 
is said to have occasioned the first protest of the churches 
in these valleys. 

In a.d. 374, Ambrose, bishop of Milan and the North 
of Italy, protests against the introduction of images into 
churches, and shows that certain superstitions prevailing 
elsewhere had not been adopted in the mountainous 
regions of his diocese. 

At the close of the seventh century are found the 
traces of a small but pure church in these districts, which 
some suppose a branch of Paulicians. Retiring from the 
insolence and oppression of the Romish clergy, they 
sought a hiding-place in the Pays de Vaud, embosomed 
in the Alps, where they might follow their consciences, 
and enjoy communion with God. 

In the ninth century, thirty years before the birth of 
our noble Alfred, Claude, a native of Spain, became 
Bishop of Turin. He was a reformer, and studied and 
preached the Scriptures. He found the churches full of 
images, and he fearlessly cast them out, and the crosses 
also, ordering them to be burned. He told the people, 
that if they painted or sculptured Peter or Paul upon 
their walls, and worshipped them, they might as well have 
continued to worship Jupiter and Saturn. “ The bones 
of saints are no more to be reverenced,” said he, “than 
the bones of cattle : and a piece of wood, even if it were 
of the true cross, is entitled to no veneration.” 

This bishop was greatly opposed, but the doctrines he 



116 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


taught sank deep into the minds of many, who cherished 
them in secret, and handed them down to their children’s 
children. He took great pains to explain Scripture, main¬ 
tained that faith alone saves us, and that all the other 
apostles were equal with Peter. He also denied that 
prayer after death could be of any use to anybody. 

This man laid, thus early, the solid foundation of the 
Reformation, which took place 700 years afterwards. He 
was called “the Bishop of the Valleys.” “The papists 
own,” says Dr. Allix, “ that the valleys of Piedmont, 
which belonged to the bishopric of Turin, held the opi¬ 
nion of Claude, through the ninth and tenth centuries.” 

Through these, as well as the eleventh and twelfth 
centuries, we must traverse what are called the dark ages , 
each one darker than the other, and watch the light, 
which had been shed abroad by such kings as Alfred and 
Charlemagne, dying out amid the personal ignorance of 
kings, priests, and people. Modern research, however, 
developes from time to time some bright particular excep¬ 
tions, in different countries, most often of such persons as 
possessed and studied the Scriptures, such as Anselm, and 
Queen Margaret of Scotland, whose husband, Malcolm, 
used to handle with great respect, and even kiss, the books 
that he saw his wife peruse, though himself so illiterate as 
not to be able to understand them. 

Comparatively few priests, in those days, understood 
the Latin service of their own church, and many were 
made bishops (it is said) who could neither read nor 
write. 

It was about the year 1151, that in several parts of the 
continent were noticed little communities, chiefly of poor 
and labouring men, distinguished from the established 
Roman Church, and who possessed, in the manuscript 
Romaunt version, both the Old and New Testaments, 
which they were fond of committing to memory. Their 
version resembled Latin : it was this : “In principio erat 
verburn, et verbum erat apud Deum, e Deus era la paraula. 


PETER WALDO. 


117 


Aiso era el comanzament amb Deu.” “ In the beginning 
was tbe Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word 
was God. Tbe same was in tbe beginning with God” 
(John 1. 1, 2). These persons were scattered all over 
Europe: in France they were called “ Tisserands,” or 
weavers; “ Poor Men of Lyons”; “ Waldenses/’ and 
“ Albigenses; ” in Germany, “ Cathari.” They existed in 
Spain, and even in Naples, and abounded near the Alps. 
It was in the following way that they spread abroad their 
opinions. “ They show some merchandise, as rings or 
robes, to lords and ladies to buy. If they sell these, and 
are asked, * Have you any more to sell?’ the answer is, 

‘ I have far more precious jewels than these, which I will 
give you, if you will not betray me.’ Safety being pro¬ 
mised, ‘ I have a gem shining from God, so radiant that 
it kindles the love of God in the hearts of those who 
possess it.’ The travelling merchant then reads some 
chapter out of his manuscript of the Gospels”; and most 
often he left it with the listener. 

It is a mistake to suppose that Peter Waldo was the 
first founder of the little churches, whose messengers 
thus went forth. He was called “ the good merchant of 
Lyons,” and was himself an earnest inquirer after Divine 
Truth, who abandoned his merchandise, distributed his 
wealth to the poor, and desired further instruction. He 
could not find it from the Papal Church, but he did find 
it in the Scriptures themselves. 

He was a man of learning: he could read the Latin 
Bible, which was the only entire version at that time in 
Europe; and he began to read and explain it to the poor 
people who crowded to hear him; and it is certain that 
the Christian world is indebted to him for the first 
translation of parts of the Scriptures into a modern 
tongue, after the Latin ceased to be a living language. 
Waldo’s translation, or that which is supposed to have 
been his, is called “ the Provencal or Romaunt version, 
which was condemned and forbidden by the council of 


118 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Toulouse, in 1229, because it was written in the tongue 
of the people. Would you like to see a specimen of this 
version, so precious to the Waldenses? We shall take it 
for you from “ The Bible of Every Land,” which is a 
“ History of the Sacred Scriptures,” as collected from all 
sources, with specimens of the versions.* If you can read 
French and Latin, you will be able to make out this Pro- 
ven 9 al version, for it is nearly allied to both of those 
languages. “ Lo filh era al comenczament, e lo filh era 
enapres Dio, e Dio era lo filh. Aiczo era al comencza¬ 
ment enapres Dio.” “ In the beginning was the Word, 
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The 
same was in the beginning with God ” (John 1. 1, 2). 

The Archbishop of Lyons endeavoured to silence and 
apprehend Peter Waldo; but he escaped, and his disciples 
followed him. The doctrines of Waldo, after this, spread 
widely through Europe. He himself retired to Dauphiny. 
Some of his people joined themselves to the Vaudois of 
Piedmont, and communicated to them their new transla¬ 
tion of parts of the Bible,—a rich addition to the spiritual 
treasures of that people. 

From a persecution raised by Pope Alexander III., 
and Philip Augustus of France, Waldo fled to Bohemia, 
where he died, A. D. 1179. He was a very extraordinary 
person. He has never yet found a biographer; but he 
“turned many to righteousness, and shall shine as the stars 
for ever and ever.” 

The Waldenses were a most simple and inoffensive 
people, yet their history has been little else than a series 
of persecutions,—so long and so bitter, that the records 
of even pagan cruelty are less horrible than those of papal 
vengeance. One of their enemies thus describes them in 
the twelfth century; “ They are clothed,” says he, “ in the 
skins of sheep; they have no linen; they inhabit flint-stone 
huts with mud roofs, in common with their cattle; they 

* Samuel Bagster and Sons, Paternoster Row. 


THE WALDENSES. 


119 


have, besides, two large caves, set apart, in which they 
conceal themselves, when hunted down for their heresies. 
Poor as they are, they are content, and live separate from 
the rest of mankind. Though outwardly so savage and 
rude, they can all read and write: you can scarcely find 
a boy among them who cannot give you an intelligent 
account of the faith they profess.” 

They never mixed in marriage with the Romanists-, 
but so well was their fidelity known, that many Roman - 
Catholic lords preferred them as nurses for their children, 
and came far to seek them for that purpose. 

They were more remarkable than any other people on 
the face of the earth for the large portions of Scripture 
which they committed to memory. Scripture was their 
all: and as the Jews treasured the manuscripts of the 
Old Testament, and carried them everywhere in their 
wanderings, musing in sullen grief, as they read them, 
on the ancient glories of their race, often, as in the 
persecutions in Spain, winding them round their bodies, 
to part with them only with their lives,—and as the early 
Christians prized the Gospels and Epistles, gazing with 
intense affection upon their title therein contained to “ a 
kingdom yet to come,”—so these Waldenses laid up rich 
portions alike from the Old and New Testaments in their 
hearts, so that they could not be taken from them. 

The preparation of their pastors for the ministry (whom 
they called “ barbes,” the Vaudois term for “ uncle,” per¬ 
haps the more to distinguish them from the “ fathers,’* to 
whom the Romish Church can trace so many of her cor¬ 
ruptions) consisted in learning by heart the Gospels of 
Matthew and John, all the Epistles, and most of the 
writings of David, Solomon, and the prophets. 

It was reckoned, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, 
that a fair copy of the Bible, from a convent, would have 
cost more than sixty pounds of our money, for the writ¬ 
ing only; and that a skilful scribe could not complete 
one in less than ten months: very precious, therefore, was 


120 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


every single portion; and as their enemies seized upon 
and burnt every copy of which they could hear, societies 
of young persons were formed in the Yaudois valleys, 
every member of which was trusted to preserve in his 
memory a certain number of chapters; and when they 
assembled for worship, which they did with all possible 
precaution, from great distances, in some hidden moun¬ 
tain gorge, these new Levites, standing before the face of 
the minister, would recite, one after another, the chapters 
of the priceless Book, for which they often paid the price 
of blood. Reiner says, that he knew among them a 
rustic who could repeat the whole of the book of Job by 
heart, and many who repeated nearly the whole of the 
New Testament. They frequently put their enemies to 
shame. A monk who was sent to preach among them to 
try and convince them of their errors, returned in confu¬ 
sion, saying, that he had never in all his life known so 
much of the Scriptures, as in those few days that be had 
been holding meetings with the heretics. 

And the children were worthy of their elders. When 
a number of doctors were sent among them from the 
Sorbonne, at Paris, one of these owned that he had un¬ 
derstood more of the doctrines of salvation from the 
answers of the little children, in their catechisms, than by 
all the disputations he had ever heard. 

Bernard says of them, that they “ actually defended 
their heresies by the words of Christ and his apostles.” 
Reneirius, the inquisitor, their bitter enemy, had, alas! 
been one of their community for seventeen years, and, 
afterwards turning against them, well knew how and 
where to direct his malice; yet even he can witness no¬ 
thing worse against them than that “ they instruct those 
amongst them who are teachable and eloquent, to get by 
heart the words of the Gospels, adorning their sect with 
the goodly words of the apostles also, that the doctrines 
they teach may be accounted sound.” 

Upon this Church of the Book came down, for century 


PERSECUTION. 


121 


after century, the heaviest vengeance of the Church of 
Rome, for they rejected all her ordinances, disbelieved all 
her miracles, and said she was the Babylon described in 
the Revelation, maintaining also, that we ought to believe 
that the Holy Scriptures alone contain all things necessary 
to our salvation. 

On them, therefore, fell the full storm of the anger of 
Innocent III., who was pope at that time. For the sake 
of crushing this little church in the mountains, he estab¬ 
lished the Inquisition, and proclaimed a crusade against 
all who held their doctrines, which indeed were rapidly 
extending. The pure faith, cradled in the Alps, was 
carried down into the surrounding plains; multitudes in 
northern Italy, along the Rhine, through the south of 
France, and within the borders of Spain, walked by the 
blessed light of Scripture, working with their hands at 
the loom also. This was the church that did its duty to 
the world; and it was going on peacefully, conquering 
and to conquer, when Rome perceived her own danger, 
and summoned all the kings, who laid their swords and 
treasures at her feet, to engage with her to cut off these 
people from the earth, and put out their light for ever. 

This, however, was no easy task: above 800,000 of 
them were scattered over Europe. It took 300 years to 
burn, to slay, and to destroy them ; and, great as was the 
slaughter, frightful the tortures inflicted, they lived on; 
they are living to this day. The doctrines of the Wal- 
denses were conveyed from France into England, at the 
time when the English were masters of Guienne, and 
were uttered in the thunders of our own Wiclif against 
the same papal domination. 

The snowy peaks of the Alps have been witnesses to 
thousands of murders. The people very often suffered for 
their faith without resistance ; but sometimes, armed with 
wooden crossbows, the men defended the narrow passes of 
their valleys, and repulsed their enemies, while the poor 
women and children on their knees entreated the Lord to 


122 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


protect his people and preserve their liberty: and even 
then their language was, “I will not trust in my bow.” 

Occasionally they defended themselves with such cou¬ 
rage and success, that for a little while their persecutors 
left the country. The people had hitherto only the New 
Testament, and some books of the Old, translated into the 
Waldensian tongue, of which we gave you a specimen; 
but in 1535 they also participated in the benefits of the 
Reformation, and possessed themselves of the whole Bible 
in a printed form. Their universal spirit spoke in the 
words of their heroic pastor, Geoffry Varaille : “You will 
sooner want wood wherewith to burn us, than men ready 
to burn in witness of their faith : from day to day we 
multiply, and the word of God endureth for ever.” 

Flayed alive, and then crushed with heavy stones, cast 
down from towers, their flesh shredded with iron whips, 
and then beaten to death with lighted brands, starved in 
the prisons, suffocated in vast numbers even in their 
caves of refuge, mothers and children driven up by 
hundreds to perish in the upper snows, their flesh cut 
alive from their bones, their bones broken between iron 
bars, their infants hurled from the heights, or dashed 
against the rocks, and their brains eaten by their mur¬ 
derers ! “ The tyrants of all past times and ages con¬ 

trived nothing, in comparison with these persecutions of 
the Yaudois, that might be called barbarous and in¬ 
human.” This was the language of the remonstrance 
made, we rejoice to say, by the Commonwealth of Eng¬ 
land to the Duke of Savoy. 

We must close our sketch of their bitter history with 
one scene, which took place on the 21st of January, 
1561, in the valley of Luzerna. The evening before, a 
proclamation had been published, that within twenty-four 
hours the inhabitants must decide on going to mass, or 
be subjected to fire, to sword, to cord,—the pope’s three 
arguments,—and the inhabitants of two valleys met to 
consider what should be done. In the midst of the 


THE BOHEMIAN CHRISTIANS. 


123 


kneeling people, their ministers pronounced these words : 
“We here promise, our hands on the Bible, and in the 
solemn presence of God, to maintain the Bible whole and 
alone, though it be at the peril of our lives, in order that 
we may transmit it to our children, pure as we received 
it from our fathers. And we also promise help to our per¬ 
secuted brothers, not relying upon man, but upon God.” 

The next morning they rushed to the Protestant 
church, which the papists had filled with images, crosses, 
and beads, and, like Claude of Turin, threw them into 
the street, and trampled them under foot. We must not 
stay to tell of their further baptisms of blood, but merely 
mention, that 130 years afterwards, when they returned 
to the valleys from which they had been exiled, they met 
again on this very spot, the hill of Sibaond, and renewed 
the same oath to God, and to each other.* 


We do not forget the Bohemian Christians, or the 
United Brethren; they too were miserably persecuted. 
They said truly, that the rack was their breakfast, and 
the flames their dinner. They were driven out of their 
villages, and their sick were thrown into the open fields. 
They hid themselves in thickets and clefts of the rocks, 
making no fires, except by night, lest the smoke should 
lead the way to their abodes; and around those night- 
fires they read the Scriptures for whole nights together,— 
“ men of whom the world was not worthy.” 

And we do not forget the Huguenots in France, spring¬ 
ing from the same parent stem as the Waldenses, nor the 
massacre of St. Bartholomew, nor the revocation of the 
edict of Nantes; but it is enough : you have seen enough 
of the martyrs of the valleys, dressed in robes of fire and 
blood, and we must pass onward and show you their 
descendants in our own island,—the men who gave us 
the Bible,—the men of the Reformation. 

* See “ The Israel of the Alps,” by Dr. Muston. 



124 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


‘‘Avenge, Oh Lord! thy slaughter’d saints, whose bones 
Lie scatter’d on the Alpine mountains cold; 

E’en them, who kept thy truth so pure of old, 

When all our fathers worshipp’d stocks and stones, 

Forget not; in thy book record their groans, 

Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold 
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that roll’d 
Mother with infant down the rocks ; their moans 
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they 
To heaven; their martyr’d blood and ashes sow 
O’er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway 
The triple tyrant; that from these may grow 
An hundred-fold, who, having learnt thy way, 

Early may fly the Babylonian woe ! ” 

Milton. 


CHAPTER VII. 

THE EARTHQUAKE COUNCIL.— JOHN WICLIF.-THE LAW MADE AT 

TOULOUSE.-ROMISH REVENGE ON WICLIF.-HIS TRANSLATION 

OF THE SCRIPTURES.-LOLLARD MARTYRS. — SAWTRE.-LADY 

JANE BOUGHTON.-LORD COBIIAM.-BLACK-FRTARs’ MONASTERY. 

-SITE OF BIBLE-HOUSE.-PRINTING.-ANGER OF MONKS.-USE 

OF MONASTERIES.-READING AND WRITING OF THE SCRIPTURES 

AT CLUGNI.-TRANSLATIONS PREPARING.—GIFT OP THE VAUDOIS 

CHURCH TO FRANCE.- OLIVETAN’s VERSION.-DE SACY’s VERSION. 

-COLPORTEURS.-TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE EXTANT UP TO 

THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.-PARTICULARS CONCERNING EACH. 

On the 17th of May, in the year 1378, when King 
Richard II. was hut seventeen years of age, being the 
year after the insurrection of Wat Tyler, a meeting took 
place at the monastery of the Black-friars, in London, 
composed of eight bishops, fourteen doctors of law and six 
of divinity, with fifteen friars and four monks, forming 
in all a council of forty-seven great men, to consider 
how they should put down certain opinions which were 



MONASTERY OF BLACK-FRIARS. 


125 


hateful to them, and prosecute the people suspected of 
holding them, one of whom, and indeed their leader, was 
John Wiclif, a priest, who had been educated at Oxford. 
He had not only delivered many lectures on the corrup¬ 
tions of the Romish Church, to which he belonged, but 
he had also spent a great part of his life in translating, 
first the New Testament, and then the Old, out of Latin 
into English, for the use of the people. He was at this 
time about fifty-four years of age, and was called “the 
Gospel Doctor,” famous for his disputes with the mendi¬ 
cant friars. These friars affected to be poor, and, with 
a wallet on their back, begged with a piteous air both 
from high and low, but at the same time they had great 
houses of their own, in which there was much waste, 
wore at home costly clothes, gave great feasts, and had 
many jewels and treasures. They would kidnap children 
from their parents, and shut them up in monasteries. 

It happened, however, just as this great synod at Black- 
friars began to discuss the four-and-twenty heresies and 
errors which they had met to consider, the city of London 
was shaken by an earthquake, when some of* the assembled 
doctors doubted whether the object of their meeting 
might not be displeasing to Heaven ; but their president, 
Archbishop Courtenay, declared that it needed an earth¬ 
quake of opinion, and a violent struggle to be made by 
the Roman Church, to remove such teachers as John 
Wiclif; “ whereat the meeting proceeded, and con¬ 
demned all his opinions, declaring that he should cer¬ 
tainly not be permitted to preach them any more.” 

He was soon afterwards silenced from preaching in 
Oxford, which gave him the more leisure for his Bible- 
work. In a large circle of bishops, doctors, priests, and 
students, Wiclif raised his noble head, and, turning a 
look on Archbishop Courtenay, which made him shrink 
away, uttered these simple, earnest words: “ The truth 
shall prevail .” Having thus spoken, he prepared to leave 
the court; and, like his Divine Master, he passed through 



126 THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

the midst of them, and none ventured to stop him. He 
then withdrew to his cure at Lutterworth. He finished his 
translation in 1380, four years before he died, and gave 
one manuscript of the Old Testament, written on vellum 
with his own hand, to St. John’s College in Oxford. At 
this time being ill, four friars and four aldermen, sup¬ 
posing him near death, came to his sick chamber, to in¬ 
quire if he would recant his opinions. Wiclif beckoned 
his servants to raise him in his bed, and fixing his eyes 
on his visiters, exclaimed, “ I shall not die but live; and 
shall again declare tire evil deeds of the friars! ” 


Lutterworth Church. 

England, Scotland, and Ireland were at this time 
covered with monasteries, and filled with friars, who 
wore robes of black, white, and gray. The mendicant 
or begging friars, especially, were always gathering up 
wealth for their church, and binding the people with 
fresh chains of superstition. Wiclif saw that they tram¬ 
pled the Bible under foot, by their overbearing authority, 



W1CLIF. 


127 


and he resolved that the people of England should have 
the Bible, and compare it with the voice of the friars. 

Being a very learned and thoughtful man, he may 
probably have known for himself, from the page of his¬ 
tory gathered from all ages, the fact, that the great in¬ 
strument of human improvement was to be found in the 
circulation of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue. 

He recovered from his sickness, and completed his 
work: there is reason to believe that the whole was 
finished, and many copies transcribed and spread abroad, 
some time be Ere the reformer’s death, which happened 
in 1384: and after his death, his doctrines spread so fast, 
that a writer of that day has angrily recorded, that a man 
could not meet two people on the road, but one of them 
was a disciple of John Wiclif; yet these poor followers, 
in that age of manuscript, could perhaps only copy parts 
of the precious Book which had been translated for them, 
which they often did into small volumes, that they might 
the easier hide them, for the having and reading of which, 
as in the times of old, people who were detected were burnt 
to death, with the little books hanging round their necks. 

The council of Toulouse, held in 1229, was the first 
that forbade, in definite form, the reading of the Bible. 
“ We also forbid the common people to possess any of the 
books of the Old or New Testaments, except perhaps the 
Psalter, or the Breviary , or the Hours of the Blessed 
Virgin, which some out of devotion wish to have ; but having 
any even of these books translated into the vulgar tongue, 
we strictly forbid 

Now, you know the “Breviary” and the “Hours of 
the Blessed Virgin” are not parts of the Bible at all; but 
this distinction the friars did not wish the illiterate and 
blinded people to perceive. They said, that “ alas ! the 
gospel pearl was cast abroad and trodden under foot of 
swine, and that the gospel which Christ had given to be 
kept by the clergy was now made for ever common to 
the laity.” 


128 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Until Wiclif undertook this task, no one appears to 
have executed a complete version of the Bible for Eng¬ 
land. In spite of all the efforts made to deprive him ol 
this honour, it remains his own. All the search made by 
antiquaries establishes the fact. He gave the whole Bible 
to the people, he gave it without note or comment, and 
he was the first man that did so. 

Ten years alter Wiclif’s death, a bill was brought 
into the House of Lords, to forbid the reading of the 
English Bible. Twenty-four years after his death (1408), 
a convocation was held in St. Paul’s to ordain that no 
book of his should be read, either in public or private, 
under pain of excommunication; but it was all in vain. 



Wiclif s Monument. 

His writings, and especially his translation of the Bible, 
found their way to all classes, and the latter became from 
that hour “the Book of the people.” Forty-four years 
after his death, according to a decree of the council of 
Constance, his grave was ransacked for his “ body and 
bones,” which were burnt, and the ashes cast into the 
brook Swift, which runs near his church at Lutterworth. 
This brook conveyed them to the Avon, the Avon into 
the Severn, the Severn into the narrow seas, they into 



















WICLIF. 


129 


the mam ocean, and thus the ashes of Wiclif were the 
emblem of his doctrines, gathered from the Bible, and 
now dispersed all the world over. 

We have given you a sketch of the monument now 
erected in his church, the noble old church of St. Mary, 



Wiclif’s pulpit; the first from which the English Reformation 
was preached. 


still standing at Lutterworth, and often visited for the 
reformer’s sake; and also, through the kindness of its 
present incumbent, you have the picture of his pulpit,— 
the first pulpit from which resounded the truths of the 
Reformation: it is finished within in the rough style of 
the time, the wood having been merely cut smooth with 
the axe. The table at which he wrote, the chair in 

which he died, and the velvet robe (now in shreds and 

10 








































130 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


tatters) which he used to wear, still remain. Nearly 
300 of his sermons are preserved: they consist chiefly of 
simple expositions of Scripture, and treat much of the 
atonement of Christ and the work of the Spirit. 

In Wiclif’s days, the great doctrine proclaimed by 
the priests of Rome was, that to obtain pardon for sin, 
penance must be borne: the people were to fast, to go 
bareheaded, to wear no linen, and to whip themselves. 
Sometimes twenty persons might be seen in procession, 
wearing hats with red crosses, and stripped to the waist, 
the first four lashing themselves as they went along with 
whips of knotted cord, which drew from them streams 
of blood. Twice a-day, in St. Paul’s church, did these 
men fulfil their self-imposed torture; tens of thousands 
went on pilgrimage to Rome, in pairs, visiting all the 
churches by the way, and giving money to the priests; 
then the priests told them, that if they would give still 
more money, they might find indulgence from all this 
hardship: they might have indulgences even for murder, 
lying, and stealing, if they could pay for them. These 
indulgences were sold openly in the market-places of the 
chief cities of Europe. Wiclif preached the doctrine 
of reformation from all this , in his pulpit, as well as by 
his works. He was an earnest teacher of the Lutterworth 
poor. He visited them in their cottages. He was familiar 
with the home of poverty and the house of mourning. 
While administering the Lord’s Supper, he was seized 
with insensibility, fell on the pavement, and died two 
days afterwards,—29th December, 1384. 

You perceive he did not die a martyr, although he 
fully expected and was ready to do so. His followers 
did, in great numbers. 

William Sawtre was the first man burnt in England 
for the Reformation’s sake. He was a clergyman in 
London, who openly taught the doctrines of Wiclif, 
and declared, that “a priest was more bound to preach 
the word of God, than to patter his prayers at certain 


LOLLARD MARTYRS. 


131 


hours”; for which, and other statements, glorying in the 
cross of Christ, and supported by Divine grace, he was 
cast into the flames of martyrdom, a.d. 1400. 

There is an account of a martyrdom, in 1410, of John 
Bradby, one of Wiclif’s followers, who was carried to 
Smithfield, and there, in a cask, burnt to ashes. At his 
execution was present Henry V., then Prince of Wales, 
—the ‘‘Prince Henry” of Shakspeare,—who, pitying his 
sufferings, offered him pardon, if he would recant, and 
had him taken out of the fire, promising, as he was 
already lamed, to allow him threepence a-day during life; 
but the martyr, rejecting the proffer, and refusing to deny 
his faith, was again thrown into the flames, and his soul 
ascended thence to heaven. 

The first female martyr in England was Lady Jane 
Boughton. She was burnt at eighty years of age, “being 
known to read the Scriptures.” “ Her daughter,” says 
Southey, “the Lady Young, suffered afterwards the same 
cruel death with equal constancy.” 

These sufferers were called “Lollards,” and the most 
famous amongst them was Lord Cobham, in his younger 
days the gay and giddy favourite of Henry V., but who, 
becoming acquainted with the Bible, through Wiclif’s 
translation, “learned to abstain from sin.” This noble 
soldier made no secret of his opinions. At a great expense 
he collected, copied, and dispersed the Scriptures among 
the common people, and even maintained preachers to 
travel about and declare Wiclif’s doctrines. His life 
and trials are extremely interesting. He escaped from 
the Tower of London, by advantage of a dark night, and 
hid himself among the Black Mountains in South Wales 
for four years. He was at last taken and roasted to death 
over a slow fire, in St. Giles’s-fields, in London, now 
covered with the abodes of poor Irish people, but which 
was then a thicket where the persecuted Lollards met for 
worship at the dead of night. 

We must only mention (to induce you to seek out theii 


132 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


histories) the names of John Huss and Jerome of Prague, 
who suffered on the continent for the same principles, 
and add a word or two more about the monastery of the 
Black-friars, where the “earthquake council” was held. 
This was built in the time of Edward I. and his queen, 
and comprised a very large territory, near the Old Castle 
Baynard. They had houses and shops within their bounds. 
It was surrendered to Henry VIII., in the thirtieth year of 
his reign, at the time of the suppression of monasteries, and 
he granted it to private persons for houses and gardens. 

The Black-friars’ church was large, and richly furnished 
with ornaments. “Herein,” says Stow, the old chronicler, 
“divers parliaments and other great meetings have been 
holden. Parliaments begun at Westminster were adjourned 
to the Black-friars’. In 1522, the Emperor Charles V. 
was lodged there: in 1529, Cardinal Campeggio, with 
Cardinal Wolsey, sate at Black-friars’ to question the king’s 
marriage, with Queen Catherine, before whom the king 
and queen were also cited to appear.” 

The same year also sat there that parliament by which 
Cardinal Wolsey himself was condemned. Here too was 
buried the heart of Queen Eleanor, the foundress. One 
of the priors was constrained to pave the High-street 
round about the Channel walls, from the Fleur-de-lis 
towards the hill at Creed-lane end, as belonging to his 
demesne; which particular, and others that might be 
found in the story of the persecution of these Black-friars 
by the White-friars, prove the large extent of ground 
within their liberty. It is very satisfactory to consider, 
that, 475 years after those friars and doctors held their 
council to cut off the doctrines of Wiclif from the earth, 
and to declare that he should not circulate the Bible,— 
those men being all dead, and their monastery and its 
cloisters entirely swept away,—there is standing in its 
stead, within their precincts and boundaries, m Earl- 
street, Blackfriars, the house of the British and 
Foreign Bible Society, which now holds its 


PRINTING. 


133 


Jubilee, and renders joyful praise to God, who has 
caused it to spread, directly and indirectly, in the last 
fifty years, forty-six millions of copies of that precious 
word of God, and to give rise and assistance to some 
thousands of similar societies, both at home and abroad! 

Wiclif “ rests from his labours, and his works do 
follow him.” His old version is very curious: “ Therefore 
whanne Jhesus was borun in Bethleem of Juda, in the 
dayes of king Eroude: lo astronomyens camen fro the eest 
to Jerusalem and seiden, where is he that is borun king 
of Jewis? for we han seen his sterre in the eest; and we 
comen for to worschipe hym” (Matt. 2. 1, 2). 

When Wiclif made his translation, he could not fore¬ 
see the wonderful invention which, occurring seventy 
years after his death, would in the present times enable 
the Bible Society to print the whole Bible, and sell it for 
less than one shilling! 

In his time, the price of a Bible, fairly written in 
manuscript, with a commentary, was not less than thirty 
pounds,—a most enormous sum, for it would have more 
than built two arches of London-bridge, and no working¬ 
man could ever have attained it, with his pay of three- 
halfpence a-day, unless, indeed, he had been fifteen years 
in working for it. 

Yet still Wiclif’s version spread widely, even in ma¬ 
nuscript, in distinct portions, throughout England. The 
art of printing was invented by John Gutenburg, at May- 
ence on the Rhine, in whose mind the idea had been 
secretly working for twenty years; but, being very poor, 
he was obliged to confide his secret to Faust, a goldsmith 
of that place, who agreed to find the money necessary to 
make types and presses. 

In 1450, the first book in the world was printed, and 
it is believed that that book was a Bible. 

But it was a Bible in Latin: it is called “ the Mazarin 
Bible.” It was beautifully printed; and when offered for 
sale, not a human being except the artists themselves 


134 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


could tell how the work had been done. It was in two 
volumes, and only eighteen copies of it are known to 
exist,—four on vellum, and fourteen on paper. In 1827, 
one of the vellum copies sold for five hundred pounds. 

These were the Bibles which were said to have caused 
Faust to have been suspected, in Paris, where he sold 
several of them, as a practiser of magic, which obliged 
him to reveal his secret. 

When the Bible had been thus first printed in Latin , 
it was soon followed by other translations. In 1488, the 
Old Testament was printed in Hebrew , the original lan¬ 
guage in which God had caused it to be written; and 
thirty years after that time, the New Testament also was 
printed in its original language, Greek, by the learned 
Erasmus, of Rotterdam, who, while he was raised up of 
God, as the most accomplished scholar of his time, to 
perform this particular work, would not (as he says) 
have ventured upon it, had he foreseen the “ horrible 
tempest” of conflicting opinions that its publication would 
raise. 

It was thus treated by the papal party: some of the 
monks were so ignorant as to preach from their pulpits, 
“ that there was now a new language discovered, called 
Greek, and another new language, called Hebrew, and 
that people must beware of them, since these languages 
produced all the heresies.” A vicar of Croydon, in Sur¬ 
rey, in a sermon which he preached at Paul’s-cross about 
this time, declared, “We must certainly root out printing, 
or printing will root out ms”; in which conclusion the 
friar was tolerably right, in more ways than one. 

Printing did at once interfere with the most innocent 
and praiseworthy occupation of those who spent their 
lives in convents,—transcription of the Bible and other 
works, which was also a great source of gain to the 
writers. As much reference has been made to the cor¬ 
ruptions of the system of which monkery formed a part, 
it is but just to point out to you what had been, through 


THE MONKS OP CLUGNI. 


135 


all the dark ages, the real use of convents, with regard to 
the preservation of the Scriptures. 

There had lived, in the year 927, a noble Frank, named 
Odo, who became abbot of Clugni, in Burgundy, and who 
was a reformer in his way; that is, he introduced among 
monks in general more rigid discipline. His convent and 
its rules became so famous, that many other convents 
followed the same. Hugh, another abbot of Clugni, 
had 10,000 monks under his superintendence. They set 
out well, by saying, that the most perfect rule of life is 
contained in the Old and New Testaments; and though 
they invented a great variety of forms, and placed heavy 
burdens on men’s shoulders, which the word of God had 
not ordered them to bear, still their rule enjoined the 
assiduous study of the Bible. The monks who could read 
well were appointed in their turn as the readers at meals. 
They read the writings of the fathers alternately with the 
Bible. The winter evenings at Clugni were really spent 
in listening to large portions of the word of God. The 
book of Genesis, in the long winter nights, was read 
through in a week; Isaiah, in six evenings; and the 
Epistle to the Romans, at two sittings. The monks la¬ 
boured with their hands, as by the rule of Iona; and 
great care was taken that, during the reading, no one 
should be overcome of sleep. The reader sat in an elevated 
place, and the hearers on benches ranged along the wall; 
and as there was no light except where the reader sat, one 
of the monks was appointed to walk round with a wooden 
lantern, open only at one side, to perceive if any brother 
had fallen asleep. If any one was asleep, nothing was 
said, but the lantern was set down with the light towards 
his face to awaken him, and directly he awoke, he knew 
he was to take the place of the lantem-bearer, and make 
the round till he found another monk asleep. 

“ Every monk was expected to know the book of 
Psalms by heart, and some rules required the learning of 
the New Testament. The number of psalms required to 


136 


THE BOOK AM) ITS STORY. 


be repeated daily, was 138; but at Clugni, fourteen were 
taken away, on account of weak brethren.”* 

These proceedings are really so like those that were 
customary at Iona, that they cause us to look back once 
more to the records of the ancient British Church, among 
which we find the following: “ Before Columba died, his 
chief seminary, Iona, was in such a state, that he was 
able to speak with confidence of its future fame. His 
disciples supported its credit for many ages, and supplied 
not only their own but other nations with learned and 
pious teachers.” “ From this nest of Columba,” says 
Odo-nellus, “ these sacred doves took their flight to all 
quarters. Wherever they went, they carried learning 
and true religion, and seem to have done much towards 
the revival of both when at the lowest ebb.” 

Next to the reading, we would thankfully notice the 
writing, of the Scriptures, which was carried on in the 
convents, through the dark ages. In most of them, a 
room, called “ the Scriptorium,” was set apart for the 
purpose. A manuscript of the eighth century contains a 
prayer used at the consecration of such an apartment, that 
what was written there might take good effect. 

Sometimes the monks wrote in separate cells, made 
round the calefactory, which was a contrivance for dis¬ 
tributing heat to all. In the monastery of Tournay, in 
France, a dozen young men might be seen in such cells 
writing in perfect silence; for silence was enjoined in the 
Scriptorium, in order to secure accuracy as well as 
despatch. Many nuns were remarkable for the legible 
and beautiful character in which they wrote. One 
Diemudis wrote and ornamented ten missals, besides 
copying two Bibles and many writings of the fathers. 
Often th is labour cost them the early loss of eye-sight. 
Perhaps, during a lifetime, the result of this industry 
might be forty or fifty folio books. 


* “ Essays on the Dark Ages, ” by Maitland. 


OLIVETAN’S VERSION. 


137 


It is deeply interesting to look upon these quiet sources of 
the world’s literature, whereby the darkness of its night was 
interspersed with many stars, till the dawning of the day in 
which arose THE PRINTING PRESS,—the tongue of 
nations, the terror of tyrants,—and then the full day in 
which THE BIBLE SOCIETY employs this mighty in¬ 
strumentality to utter to all lands the written voice of God. 

If we look at the first five-and-twenty years of the six¬ 
teenth century, Lefevre in France, Zuinglius in Switzer¬ 
land, Luther in Germany, and Tyndal in England, appear 
before the world. They were all living at this time in 
their respective countries, Lefevre being by far the oldest 
of the four. They were all engaged in the same work, 
independently of each other,—the translation of the Scrip¬ 
tures into different languages, each being evidently pre¬ 
pared of God as the instrument for the purpose ; for God’s 
hour was come, and his holy word, which had been 1600 
years in writing (from the time of Moses till the close of 
the life of John), and then for 1300 years made known 
only sparingly, as copied by hand-labour, manuscript from 
manuscript, was now to be made accessible to all, and was 
to have free course, and prevail. 

We must return for a moment to the Yaudois Church, 
which had hitherto possessed parts of the sacred volume, 
translated by Peter Waldo, and from time immemorial 
the manuscript Romaunt version. In 1523, Lefevre com¬ 
pleted his first translation of the four Gospels; and some 
of the Vaudois Christians, in the midst of their own deep 
troubles and persecutions, having some years previously 
visited the Christian Churches of France, and having seen 
that the copies of the Old and New Testaments in the 
tongue of the people, written by hand , were extremely 
scarce, and that moreover the translation hitherto made 
needed much revision and improvement, they invited 
Robert Olivetan to translate the Bible according to the 
Hebrew and Greek languages, revised by the Romaunt ver- 



138 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


sion, into the French tongue. This being accomplished, 
the Vaudois Churches collected among themselves the 
enormous sum of 1500 golden crowns ; and forming them¬ 
selves into a kind of Vaudois and Foreign Bible Society, 
they had the new translation printed in Gothic characters, 
at the press of Peter de Wingle, at Neufchatel, in Switzer¬ 
land, and caused numbers of copies to be circulated in 
France, at a greatly reduced price, among those poor 
French Christians whom persecution had then previously 
despoiled and ruined. 

It is this very version of the Bible, translated by Robert 
Olivetan, and afterwards revised by Calvin, his relative, by 
the pastors of Geneva, by Martin, and by Ostervald, which 
the British and Foreign Bible Society is still unceasingly 
endeavouring to render more and more popular in France. 

But there is another French translation of the Bible, 
which appeared 130 years later, and which was an event 
as memorable as the one to which we have just referred. 

It was made in the year 1666, by Le Maistre de Sacy, 
the director of the monastery of Port Royal des Champs. 
The version of Robert Olivetan, even though perfected 
by successive revisions made up to the time of Ostervald, 
as coming from a Protestant, was never widely circulated 
among Roman Catholics. 

But in the providence of God, it was ordered, that 
from the bosom of the Roman Church itself, from a sec¬ 
tion of her members who had made the nearest approaches 
to the truth, and who were called “ Jansenists,” certain 
men were raised up in an especial manner qualified for 
the translation of his word. 

At the head of these was he who gave his name to the 
translation, Le Maistre de Sacy, who first put his hand to 
this noble work, during his three years’ imprisonment, on 
a charge of heresy, in the prison of the Bastile. It is 
very remarkable that Luther, the reformer of Germany 
(of whom more must be said presently), commenced his 
translation of the Scriptures in the prison of the Wartburg. 


DE SACY’S VERSION. 


139 


This employment made De Sacy happy in a cell of the 
Bastile. “ How happy,” said he, “I am in being here ! 
God shows me that He wishes me to be here.” 

When De Sacy came out of prison, he finished the 
entire translation of the Bible into French, with his pious 
fellow-labourers; and whilst they were carrying forward 
this great work, it is very interesting to know what was 
also passing in the convent of Port Royal. 

The nuns, animated by a spirit not hitherto very usual 
among nuns, had divided themselves into groups, and in 
the same manner that sentinels relieve each other at night, 
in order to maintain a strict watch over a town, they had 
established a course of unceasing prayer. When one group 
had finished, another immediately came to occupy its place. 
Kneeling down, they offered fervent prayers to the Lord, 
beseeching Him to pour down on the translators of his 
word, the spirit of wisdom, light, and understanding, that 
none other than a holy and pure translation of the inspired 
volume—in fact, one like the original text itself—might 
issue from their pens. 

As soon as the version was ready, the good men who 
had been engaged in it took care to have it published, 
with the Greek and Latin text by its side, that all who 
were able might judge at once of the scrupulous fidelity 
of their translation. 

They dispatched from Paris a large number of colpor¬ 
teurs who spread themselves over every province of the 
kingdom, being commissioned to sell the copies at cost 
price , and even, according to circumstances, at reduced 
prices. This act of the friends of the word of God was 
supported by voluntary donations and subscriptions. 

The version of Robert Olivetan, also, which, you will 
take notice, was printed 130 years earlier than that of De 
Sacy, was spread abroad in the same manner: indeed, 
it is to the appearance of that Bible that the origin of 
Bible colportage must be attributed,—a work which you 
will understand, we hope, when you have read the third 


140 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


portion of our Story. These colporteurs were then called 
“ portes paniers,” or “ porteurs de livres,” and followed 
in the train of those poor merchants, whom we described 
to you as travelling among the Vaudois, distributing 
secretly “ the gem shining from God,” in manuscript. 

Before we approach that, to us, most interesting subject— 
the full translation and printing of our own English version, 
which was to have so vast an influence on the whole world 
—we must inquire what languages had sprung from the five 
great roots of translation during the period between the 
first and sixteenth centuries after Christ. By the end of 
the first century, the Scriptures were written in— 
Hebrew, Syriac, 

Chaldee, Latin. 

Greek, 

By the end of the sixteenth, translations of large portions, 
if not of the whole, of the Old and New Testaments had 
been made in— 

Coptic, for Egypt, in the third century. 

* Gothic, for the Goths, in the fourth century. 

Persic, for the Persians, in the fourth century. 

Ethiopic, for Abyssinia, in the fourth century. 

Ancient Armenian, in the fifth century. 

Syro-Chaldaic, for the Nestorians, in the sixth century. 

Arabic, for Arabia, in the seventh century. 

Georgian, for Iberia, in the eighth century. 

* Sclavonic, for Sclavonia, in the ninth century. 

* Vaudois, for the Waldenses, in the twelfth century. 

* Erse, for the Irish, in the thirteenth century. 

* Polish, for Poland, in the fourteenth century. 

* English, by Wiclif, in the fourteenth century. 

* Icelandic, for Iceland, in the sixteenth century. 

Seven of these versions (marked *) you perceive were for 
Europe, five for Asia, and two for Africa; and some 
interesting circumstance, that you would like to remem¬ 
ber, attaches to all of them. 



PARTICULARS OF VARIOUS TRANSLATIONS. 14] 

Wherever the Bible was thus translated into the lan¬ 
guage of the people , reformation ensued , and churches 
were founded , the greater number of which remain to this 
day, and are now experiencing revival from the free circu- 
lation of the Divine word which at first gave them birth. 

V\' e have not much space for detail, but we must give 
you some information concerning each version. 


THE COPTIC. 


Aa 

Bb P r A a 6 

E Z-l H h 

0 0 

l ) 

a 

b, ▼ g d e 

z i, e 

th 

i 

Kn 

A A Mm Nn 

O 

O 

rH 

bR 

nn 

Pp 

k 

1 m n 

X o 

p, b 

r 

Cc 

T t T y $ <j> 

X x xj/ \p 

(DU) 

Qq 

8 

t, d i, y ph 

ch, sc ps 

0 

f 


K x 6 6 0 a) 

2 <3 Jb Jd 

T+ 



g sk, sc sch 

h hh 

ti 



The Coptic Alphabet. 




This was once the spoken language of Egypt, but is 
now changed for the Arabic. The Copts are descended 
from the ancient Egyptians, mixed with other races. In 
this language one of the earliest and most faithful versions 
existed, translated from the Septuagint, and it has been the 
means of keeping alive the form, if not the spirit, of Chris¬ 
tianity, during 1500 years, among a persecuted people, 
surrounded by Mahomedan oppressors. Mr. Kruse, the 
present missionary at Cairo, relates the remark of a native 
Copt: “We want a man to rise up from among our own 
people, like your Luther, bold enough to stand fast in 
the faith, and to reform our church.” We shall say more 
about the Copts in connection with the Bible Society. 


142 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


THE GOTHIC. 


M r 4 6 u 2 h <J) 11 R A 


k 


a b g d e q 


h th 


HH^nn^STY] 10 ^ 


m n j u p rs t v, y f w o 

The Gothic Alphabet. 

This version was made for the people who came from 
Scandinavia, down to Prussia and East Germany, and the 
coast of the Black Sea, and who, in 409, took and pillaged 
Rome, under Alaric. It was completed by Ulphilas, one 
of their bishops, a man of good conduct and of great mind, 
whose own holy life recommended his doctrines. It was 
a proverb among the Goths, “ Whatever Ulphilas does, is 
well done.” The most important manuscript of the Go¬ 
thic version was discovered in Westphalia, where it had 
lain several centuries. It has been taken and retaken in 
war, many times since, and is now to be seen in the 
library at Upsal, preserved in a glass box, which not even 
an emperor might open, for it is a treasure so much 
coveted, that it has lost all its leaves except 160. It is 
called “ the Codex Argenteus,’* the silver book; and its 
silver letters, with occasionally a verse of gold, are 
inscribed on violet vellum, while its binding is of em¬ 
bossed silver,in this kind of character— 



It has been thought that the characters are not written, 
but stamped or impressed as by the old process of letter¬ 
ing the back of a book, i. e., laying gold-leaf over some 
mixture, like white of egg, on the vellum, and then im¬ 
pressing the letters with a heated stamp, and afterwards 
wiping off the surplus gold. 


PARTICULARS OF VARIOUS TRANSLATIONS. 143 


THE PERSIC. 


I ' 


*, e, i, o, u b 


p t a, th dsch tsch h’ ch d 



J j y 

8Ch 83 tS t 


)i 


£ 6 


f 


> j ; 


ds r z 



k, q kj, k 


d f <j ) > i (j 

1 m n w, u h,t j, i 

The Persian Alphabet. 


The primitive alphabet of the Persians seems to have 
been arrow-headed, like the Nineveh characters, but the 
alphabet now used is the Arabic. Chrysostom speaks of 
the Persian version as having originated with the Christian 
Elamites, who returned to Persia after the day of Pente¬ 
cost. 


THE ANCIENT ARMENIAN. 


O' 

fV 


‘bt 

O 


k* 


a 

p 

k 

t 

I® 

8 

e 

6 


cM 

bfi 

1 JL 

111 /« 

\>'* 

Ilf 


th 

sk 

i 

■ 1 

ch 

ds 

g 

h 


X-L 

7 \'a* 

l) v ' 

(>J 

V' 


n- 

z 

gh 

dsch 

m 

k, j 

n 

sch 

ao 



■<\£ 

H'**- 

l) tf 

W JL 

S m 

I'e 

tsh 

b 

dsh 

rh 

9 

w 

d 

r 


3 s 

1'- 

<|) -/< 


()» 

il>^ 



tz 

a, t 

P 

k 

0 

t 



The Armenian Alphabet. 

This is a very old and faithful translation, and is called 


144 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

the “queen of versions,” on account of its exactness and 
eloquent simplicity. 


THE ETHXOriC, OR GHEEZ. 



(DOHP^?m^ae/- t 

wa a za ja da ga ta pa tza za fa pa 


The Ethiopic, or Gheez, Alphabet. 

The Ethiopic was once the common dialect of Abyssinia, 
but is now supplanted by the Amharic. We have men¬ 
tioned this translation in the account of the early Abys¬ 
sinian Church. 

SYRO-CHALDAIC. 

. ; A\v> Zoo? _o7o4u2 A j-xvs 

« // < *. • 

loo) 24 ^? 9 ° 7 ° 



John 1. 1. 


Tliis is the version which existed in the interesting 
Nestorian Church, among the dwellers in the mountains 
of Assyria. Several ancient manuscripts of the Gospels 
have been brought to Europe in this character, which 
the Bible Society have printed. Up to the year 1826 , 
these people had no printed Scriptures: they said, “We 
have heard that the English are able to write a thousand 
copies in one day; would they not write for us several 
thousand copies and send them to us? We become wild, 
like Kurds, for we have so few copies of the Bible.” The 
desire of this simple people has already been fulfilled. 



PARTICULARS OF VARIOUS TRANSLATIONS. 145 


ARABIC. 

\ \ ^ O O ^ ^ J jj J ^ 

a, e, i, o, u b t 8, th dsch b’ ch d ds r z 8 

u° o° ^ ^ ^ J j J i) J 

sch as z, dh t z ’a, ’o, ’a gh f k kj, k ng 1 

f ^ j J 4 c5 

m n w, u h, t j, i 

The Arabic Alphabet. 

The Arabic is the tongue not only of Arabia, but Syria, 
Persia, Tartary, part of India and China, half of Africa, and 
all the sea-coast of the Mediterranean and Turkey. This 
version is said to have been made during the lifetime of 
Mahomet, which may account for the knowledge of the 
Scripture he displays in his Koran, mixed with such 
fables as “Adam being several miles long when he laid 
himself down.” Long indeed has been the reign of the 
false prophet. His fables have hidden the true revela¬ 
tion for many ages from his benighted followers ; but the 
Arabic version is now going forth, no more in the rare 
form of manuscript, but easy to be carried and read 
wherever Arabic is spoken; and it is said the sons of 
Kedar willingly buy and read the word of God. 

THE GEORGIAN, OR IBERIAN. 

abgdewshthik 1 mn 

n> i. rvj 

i o p sb rstuwiphkgk 

3 ^ 0 s Ui 1 H ^ 

q sob tseb ts ds z dsch kh kkb dsh h 

The Georgian, or Iberian, Alphabet. 


0 *3 ? % 3 se 


146 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


The version in this language would have been very 
precious to the learned had it not become corrupted. The 
women of Georgia are noted for the zeal with which they 
devote themselves to the acquisition of religious knowledge. 

THE SCLAV ONI AN. 

fla Be Be rrlV Aa 6* IKjk Ss3s 

a b w, y h d e sh (z) s 

Hh Hh Ii Kk Aa Ma\ Hh Oo Iln Pp 

ijikl m n opr 

G c Tt Oy oy X# <1> $ X\ Qw IJ 4 m 

st u f ch ot z (e) tsch 

[U m tjl 141 Ti a Uu bk 'hi 6e K) 10 

scb schtscb (mute) y (soft) je ju 

III ra (i\ /A Qw Oo \|r 0A Y v 

ja o (soft) psi th y 

The Sclavonic Alphabet. 

This tongue was in use among the Servians and Mora¬ 
vians. The Bible was translated by two Greek monks, 
Cyrilles and Methodius, in the ninth century, and these 
were the founders of the Moravian Church, afterwards 
sheltered by Count Zindendorf. 

Of the Vaudois you have heard already. Of the 
Polish there is little to say at present, except that it 
was made for Queen Sophia, who is said to have pos¬ 
sessed the whole Bible in that language. 

THE ERSE, OR IRISH. 

aa 6b Cc <D b Ge pp 55 Hh li Cl Him 
abcdefghilm 
Nn Oo pp Rp Sp Ur Uu 4 n [p 
n o p r s t u ar nn rr 
The Erse, or Irish Alphabet. 


ERSE, OR IRISH, TRANSLATION. 147 

The Erse was once the tongue of literature and science. 
It is believed that the Scriptures were translated into Irish 
very soon after the introduction of Christianity ; and the 
Venerable Bede informs us, that in his time, “ the Scrip¬ 
tures were read in five dialects of Great Britain, by the 
Angles, Britons, Scots, Piets, and Latins”; and though the 
Erse version may possibly have died out during the in¬ 
terval, it appeared again in the age immediately before 
that of Wiclif, when a New Testament in Irish is stated 
to have been in the possession of a bishop of Armagh, 
who is supposed to have himself translated it. He left a 
memoir of nimself, in which he declares “ how the Lord 
taught him, and brought him out of the net of heathen 
philosophy, to the study of the Scriptures of God.” 

Although he was remarkable for the boldness with 
which he opposed the corruptions of the Church of 
Rome, yet he was compelled by the troubles of the times 
to conceal his New Testament. He deposited the pre¬ 
cious volume inside one of the walls of his church, and 
wrote the following note on the last leaf: “ When this 
book is found, truth will be revealed to the world, or 
Christ will shortly appear.” One hundred and seventy 
years after his death, that is to say, about the year 1530, 
the church of Armagh was repaired, and the manuscript 
discovered, at the very time in which Tyndal’s New 
Testaments began to spread through Britain, in the 
tongue of the people: and so truth was revealed, as in¬ 
deed it had never been before. 


148 


CHAPTER yin. 

r YNDAL.-ERASMUS. — TONSTALL.-MORE. -WOLSEY.-SEARCH 

FOR TESTAMENTS IN LONDON, OXFORD, AND CAMBRIDGE.-SCENES 

in st. Paul’s cathedral, and at Paul’s cross.— deaths of 

TYNDAL AND OF WOLSEY.-DESCRIPTION OF FRONTISPIECE, WITH 

MARTYRDOM OF ANN ASKEW.-LUTHER.-LIST OF LANGUAGES 

BEFORE 1804. -SUMMING UP OF THE NARRATIVE. 


THE PRINTED ENGLISH BIBLE. 



And who was William Tyndal,—the man who gave to 

England its greatest 
treasure—the printed 
English Bible ? 

There is a book call¬ 
ed ‘ ‘ Anderson’s Annals 
of the English Bible,” 
which contains the life 
of Tyndal. It was a life 
devoted entirely to this 
great object. From his 
youth, he felt he had 
this one thing to do ,— 
to translate the word 
of God into his native 
tongue, and print it. 
He did so, and was 
martyred for its sake. 
tyndal. Hewasbornin 1484, 

100 years after Wiciif died, and about a year after the 
birth of Luther, and also of Zuingle. He passed his 



TYNDAL. 


149 


youth in the midst of monks and friars, and was sent 
early to Oxford, where he made great progress, especially 
in languages. 

Now, Oxford was the city in which the New Testament, 
just published in Greek by Erasmus, met with its warmest 
welcome, and William Tyndal read it,—first only as a 
work of learning, but soon he found it to be something 
more. That Book spoke to him of God, of Christ, and 
of being born again, till it completely subdued him. He 
felt that he had in his hand the Divine Revelation, and 
that he could not keep the treasure to himself. He there¬ 
fore read these Greek and Latin Gospels with many of his 
fellow-students, at Oxford. He then went to Cambridge, 
and, forming new friendships, became, it is said, “ well 
ripened in God’s word.” 

There were two young men at Cambridge, who had 
also been reading this Greek New Testament,—Thomas 
Bilney and John Frith,—both afterwards martyrs. When 
Tyndal joined them, they gained fresh courage, and be¬ 
gan to address to all around them that saying of Christ’s, 
“Repent, and be converted:” “Christ Jesus came into 
the world to save sinners.” 

Bilney and Tyndal left Cambridge in 1519. The friars 
had not then finished their persecution of the Lollards; 
and that same year, Thomas Man, one of their number, 
who had preached to the conversion of many persons, 
under the great oaks of Windsor Forest, was burnt alive 
for his doctrine, as well as Dame Hawkins, the mother 
of several little children, for having in her possession a 
parchment, on which were written the Lord’s Prayer, the 
Apostles’ Creed, and the Ten Commandments, in English. 

But of what avail was it to silence those obscure lips, 
while the New Testament of Erasmus could speak? And 
God so ordered it, that Erasmus was a favourite with 
Henry VIII., King of England, who whispered in the 
ear of a bishop very wroth with the Greek Testament, and 
at the same time ignorant enough to declare that Paul’s 


150 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Epistles had been written in Hebrew, “ The beetle must 
not attack the eagle”; so that even preaching in St. Paul’s 
cathedral against the book was, as is said, “of no avail.” 

Erasmus was so highly esteemed, that he was called 
“ the king of the schools.” What he had given to the 
learned, Tyndal was about to bestow upon the people. 
When he was between thirty and forty years of age, he 
was engaged as tutor and chaplain in the house of Sir 
John Walsh, a knight of Gloucestershire, and at his table 
he met with many of the neighbouring priests, at whose 
ignorance he was deeply grieved. He exhorted them also 
to read the Scriptures, keeping, it is said, Erasmus’s New 
Testament always within reach, to prove what he ad¬ 
vanced. The priests disliked to see that book appear, 
and said it only served to make heretics, adding, “ Why 
even we don’t understand God’s word, as you call it; and 
how should the vulgar understand it ? It is a conjuring 
book, wherein everybody finds what he wants.” “ Ah !” 
said Tyndal, “ you read it without Jesus Christ; that is 
why it is obscure to you.” “ Nothing is obscure to us,” 
said another priest; “ we only can explain the Scriptures.” 
“No,” said Tyndal; “you hide them, you burn those 
who teach them, and, if you could, you would burn the 
Scriptures themselves.” 

This kind of talk is said to have induced the priests 
rather to give up Squire Walsh’s good cheer, at Sodbury 
Hall, than encounter “ the sour sauce” of Master Tyndal’s 
company. 

They soon declared themselves his open enemies; and 
if he preached, they threatened to expel from the church 
those who listened to him. “ Oh ! ” said Tyndal; “while 
I am sowing in one place, they ravage the field I have 
just left. I cannot be everywhere. If Christians had the 
Scriptures in their own tongue, they could themselves 
withstand these sophists: 'without the Bible it is impos¬ 
sible to establish the laity in the truth.” 

He went on arguing with all whom he met, in favour 


TYNDAL. 


151 


of translating the Scriptures, till one day a popish doctor, 
angry with the strength of his arguments, said: “ Well; 
we had better be without God’s laws than the pope’s.” 
This fired the spirit of Tyndal, and he answered, with 
righteous indignation, “ I defy the pope and all his laws ; 
and if God give me life, ere many years the ploughboys 
shall know more of the Scriptures than you do.” 

He henceforth passed the greater part of his time in the 
library, and avoided these conversations. He prayed, he 
read, and carried on his translation, and seems to have 
read it, as he proceeded, to Sir John and Lady Walsh, 
who were determined to protect him. He soon, however, 
left them for the sake of their safety, and proceeded to 
London, to seek another retreat, where he might follow 
out his work. 

He found a quiet room in the house of Humphrey 
Monmouth, a pious and benevolent alderman, near Temple 
Bar, and dwelt with him six months, “ studying most part 
of the day and night at his book.” Humphrey Monmouth 
was afterwards sent to the Tower, on a charge of having 
aided Tyndal; but he thus justified himself: “When 
I heard my Lord of London preach at Paul’s-cross, that 
Sir William Tyndal had translated the New Testament 
into English, and that it was naughtily translated, that 
was the first time that ever I suspected or knew any evil 
of him.” The worthy citizen was soon set free. It seems 
ne afterwards contributed largely to the printing of the 
New Testament. 

Tyndal began to fear lest the stake should interrupt his 
labour. “Alas!” he exclaimed; “is there then no place 
where I can translate the Bible? It is not the bishop’s 
house alone that is closed upon me, but all England!” 
There lay at that moment, in the river Thames, a vessel 
loading for Hamburg: Humphrey Monmouth gave him 
ten pounds for his voyage; and, carrying with him only 
his New Testament, he went on board. “ Our priests 
have buried the Testament of God,” said he; “ and all 


152 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


their study is to keep it down, that it rise not again; but 
the hour of the Lord is come, and nothing can hinder 
the word of God, as nothing could hinder Jesus Christ of 
old from issuing from the tomb.” 

“ That poor man, then sailing towards Germany, was 
to send back, even from the banks of the Elbe, the eternal 
gospel to his countrymen.” 

He left England in 1523, and never returned to it. 
Humphrey Monmouth and other kind friends supplied 
his simple wants while sitting down to his work in a 
foreign land. 

He had now entered with great vigour on the two most 
important years of his life. He seems to have printed 
first, the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, and in 1524 he 
sent them to his friend Monmouth, and then removed to 
Cologne. Being again disturbed, in the midst of printing 
the whole New Testament, he gathered up the ten already 
printed sheets, and fled to Worms, where he finished it. 
It crossed the sea to England in 1526. 

Cochloeus, that enemy who had desired to strangle it 
in its birth at Cologne, wrote home to King Henry and 
the bishops, to watch closely all the ports against the 
entrance of “the pernicious book”; while the Bishop of 
London, having gained possession of one of the copies, 
took care to tell the people, in case they met with such a 
book, that he had found in it upwards of 2000 errors and 
heresies. Moreover, he at once entered into a secret 
speculation to buy it up through a merchant named 
Packington, saying, “Gentle Master Packington, do your 
diligence and get them, and I will pay for them what¬ 
soever they cost you; for the books are naughty, and I 
intend surely to destroy them all, and to burn them at 
PauTs-cross.” 

So you see the Roman Church burnt men , and bones, 
and books , but all to no purpose. William Tyndal, under¬ 
standing this purpose of Bishop Tonstall, sold him the 
books, saying, “ I shall gette moneye of him for these 


JOHN TYNDAL.-SIR THOMAS MORE. 


153 


bokes to bryng myself out of debt, and the whole world 
shall cry out, at the brunninge of God’s worde, and the 
overplus of the moneye that shall remain to me shall 
make me more studious, to correct againe, and newly to 
imprint the same.” And so forward went the bargain: the 
bishop had the books; Packington had the thanks; and 
Tyndal had the money; and afterwards more New Testa¬ 
ments came thick and threefold into England. 

The more these New Testaments were suppressed, the 
greater was the desire of men to possess them, and to 
examine their contents, and this in spite of punishment. 
The sentence on John Tyndal, a merchant of London, 
and brother to William, by Sir Thomas More, was, “that 
he should be set upon a horse with his face to the tail, 
and have a paper pinned upon his head, and many sheets 
of New Testaments sewn to his cloak, to be afterwards 
thrown into a great fire kindled in Cheapside, and then 
pay to the king a fine which should ruin him.” 

What would the citizens of London think now, if they 
saw one of its wealthy and honourable merchants thus 
treated for having a New Testament in his possession? 

Tyndal’s own words about the persecution raised were, 
—“In brunninge the New Testament, they did none 
other thing than I looked for: no more shall they do, if 
they brunne me also, if it be God’s will that it shall be so. 
I purpose, with God’s help, to maintain unto the death, 
if need be; and therefore, all Christian men and women, 
praye that the worde of God may be unbounde and runne 
to and fro among his people: Amen.” 

The great Lord Chancellor More published seven large 
volumes against Tyndal. He held the error of the an¬ 
cient Pharisees, that the Bible did not contain the 
whole revealed will of God, but that the traditions of the 
church are of as great authority; and he said that Satan 
had marked both Luther and Tyndal with an “H” in 
the forehead, for denying it, “with a faire hotte irone, 
fetched out of the flames of hell.” These are the very 


154 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


words of the friend of Erasmus,—the learned, witty, and 
eloquent Sir Thomas More. Tyndal only answered him, 
that the written word of God contains all his revealed 
will, perfect as its Divine Author; and that “if any man 
add to it, or take away from it, God shall take away his 
part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and 
from the things that are written in the book.” 

The clergy, delighted with More, their champion, 
pressed upon him the acceptance of five thousand pounds. 
He was a noble-minded man, and refused to accept a 
penny of it; and he seems to have foreseen that the 
“New Learning,” as he called it, would eventually pre¬ 
vail. He himself chose a violent death rather than deny 
his conscience concerning King Henry’s second marriage; 
and, in reviewing his life in comparison with Tyndal’s, 
one cannot but discern so much that is similarly great in 
their characters, that, had their souls been truly and in¬ 
timately known to each other, we are ready to believe 
they would have been united in the bonds of the highest 
friendship, and that when More gave up to his “ dear 
daughter Margaret,” on her visiting him in prison, the 
knotted whip with which he had chastised himself from 
his youth, and the hair shirt he had worn constantly to 
aggravate the stripes, he had (enlightened by the reading 
of the forbidden New Testament) seen the way to heaven 
clear, through Christ alone, and renounced his faith in 
penance and self-torture. If so, he must have had much 
to forgive himself with regard to Tyndal and many 
others.* 

In the year 1527, great rains having fallen at the seed¬ 
time, bread became extremely dear, and it was necessary 
to import corn. The merchants who did this, brought 
with them also 500 copies of Tyndal’s New Testament, 
secretly, which was the fourth edition that reached Eng- 

* Sir Thomas More was beheaded on the 6th of July, 1535, the 
year before the martyrdom of Tyndal. 


THOMAS GARRETT.—ANTHONY DALARER. 155 

land. Wolsey, the prime minister, became aware that 
many were earnestly reading them, and resolved to make 
search suddenly, and at one time, in London, Oxford, 
and Cambridge. 

In London he found that a certain Thomas Garrett, 
curate of All-Hallows, in Honey-lane, Cheapside, was a 
receiver and distributer of these New Testaments, and 
that he had even then gone down to Oxford to make sale 
of them there. He was soon seized, and in the safe 
keeping of his enemies. Let us, meanwhile, look into 
the chamber from which he had gone forth, in Oxford, 
and see there Anthony Dalaber, one of the students 
devotedly attached to him. 

“ When he was gone forth down the stairs from my 
chamber,” says Dalaber, “I shut the door, and went into 
my study, and took the New Testament in my hands, 
kneeled down upon my knees, and with many a bitter 
sigh and salt tear, I read over the 10th chapter of Mat¬ 
thew’s Gospel (in which Christ tells his early disciples of 
all they would have to suffer for his sake). And when 
I had so done, with fervent prayer I did commit to God 
that dearly-beloved brother Garrett, and prayed also that 
he would endue that tender and lately-born little flock in 
Oxford, with all godly patience, to bear Christ’s heavy 
cross, which I now saw was presently to be laid upon 
their young and weak, backs,—unable to bear so huge a 
burden, without the great help of his Holy Spirit. This 
done, I laid aside my book safe." 

This Garrett and this Dalaber were made to carry a 
faggot, in open procession, from St. Mary’s to Cardinal 
College, and compelled to cast their books into the large 
fire which had been kindled at the meeting of four ways 
to consume them. They were then imprisoned in Osney 
Isle. The crown of martyrdom awaited Garrett, but not 
for sixteen years afterwards. He and Dr. Barnes were 
consumed in the same flames, in 1540. 

Eighteen young men besides these were captured in the 


156 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


secret search for New Testaments at Oxford: among them 
was Frith, the especial friend of Tyndal. He appears, 
like his friend, to have availed himself of the advantages 
of both universities. The prohibited books had been 
found under the flooring of their rooms; and, as a punish¬ 
ment, they were all immured in a deep cell under Car¬ 
dinal College, the common keeping-place for their salt 
fish,—a noisome dungeon, where the air and the food to¬ 
gether proved fatal to four of them. The rest were kept 
in this miserable abode from the beginning of March till 
the middle of August, eating nothing but salt fish: the 
names of those who died were Clarke, Sumner, Bailey, 
and Goodman: their record is in heaven ! And we may 
believe that it was given them, according to Anthony 
Dalaber’s prayer, “ quietly with all godly patience to bear 
Christ’s heavy cross, by the great help of his Holy Spirit, 
and to receive from Him their crown.” 

Now, let us see what were the fruits of the search at 
Cambridge. You remember Thomas Bilney, who, ten 
years before, had been reading, with Tyndal, Erasmus’s 
Greek Testament. He had been the means of the con¬ 
version of Hugh, afterwards Bishop Latimer, and Dr. 
Barnes; for it is a very remarkable feature belonging to 
the love of the word of God, that neither a man nor a 
child can love it alone. He who has tasted a pure foun¬ 
tain,—he who has looked upon a land of promise, must 
say to others, “Come and see it.” 

No one ever loved the Bible, and suffered from read¬ 
ing it, but he caused some one or more besides himself 
to love it, and suffer for it too. It was long before the 
persecutors perceived, that the more men they persecuted, 
and the more books they burned, the greater torch they 
kindled in England. In these modern times, even 
papists, if enlightened, see with their champion, Dr. 
Geddes, that “burning suspicious books is the readiest 
way to make more of them, as persecuting for any kind 
of religion is the surest means of spreading it.” 


OLD ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL. 


157 


The sergeant-at-arms arrived at Cambridge to make 
search for English New Testaments. “ God be praised,” 
says Foxe, “the books were conveyed away from the 
thirty suspected rooms.” He found therefore no books, 
but carried off to London Dr. Barnes, who had greatly 
offended the Cardinal Wolsey by speaking against his 
golden shoes and scarlet gloves. 

He was made to bear a faggot at St. Paul’s-cross, and, 
for the time, was so far compelled, by fear and bad 
advisers, as to abjure what he had said, rather than bum, 
though he was burnt, as you have been told, sixteen years 
afterwards. 

Shall we try and fancy St. Paul’s and its neighbour¬ 
hood at the era of the Reformation ? We must shut our 


Old St. Paul’s Cathedral. 

eyes, and bid the present mighty dome vanish away. 
There is a Gothic cathedral in its place, whose bold and 




158 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


elegant spire seems to pierce the sky. It is worthily 
called “a famous building,” and arose in the middle 
of the twelfth century, over the ruins of a still older 
church, which had been burnt in the first year of King 
Stephen, at a time when boys stole apples out of the 
orchards in Patemoster-row and Ivy-lane. 

This original church had been built, by Ethelbert, in 
610, again on the rums of a temple raised to Diana, in 
the time of the Romans, whose funeral urns have been 
found in the churchyard; so that we seem scarcely able 
to go back to the time when there was not a temple raised 
for worship, pagan or Christian, on this spot. 

The St. Paul’s of the Reformation looked down, as 
now, from the top of Ludgate-hill, upon the smaller 
churches, and on the rich convents within the city’s 
bounds,—on St. Bartholomew’s, in Smithfield; on the 
Grey-friars, in Newgate-street; on the Black-friars, the 
White-friars, the Austin-friars, and the Crutched-friars, 
from whose monasteries issued the men in sad-coloured 
robes, who might be seen in every street mingling with 
the gayer multitude. 

People were accustomed in those days to meet in St. 
Paul’s cathedral to transact their business. The sergeant- 
at-law, in his scarlet robe, white furred hood and coif on 
his head, gave his advices to his clients there. Each 
sergeant had his pillar in St. Paul’s, and made his notes 
upon his knee; and the old church was often the scene 
of most riotous conflict. 

This it also was when Bishop Courtenay had cited 
Wiclif to defend himself in this cathedral, which was 
densely crowded by the people. Lord Percy and John 
of Gaunt could scarcely secure an avenue of entrance for 
the reformer: these were his avowed friends, and Courte¬ 
nay began to quarrel with them. Wiclif was a silent 
spectator, John of Gaunt claiming for him a seat, Courte¬ 
nay saying, he should not sit there,—“ each party so ex¬ 
celling,” says the quaint old John Foxe, “in bawling 


SCENE IN ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. 


159 


and railing, threatening and menacing, that, without 
doing anything, the council was broken up before nine 
of the clock.” 

We must show you another scene in St. Paul’s. On 
Sunday, the 11th of February, 1526, there was to be 
seen, Fisher, bishop of Rochester, in the pulpit, set to 
preach against Luther and Dr. Barnes, and there sat 
Wolsey, in all his glory, on a scaffold at the top of the 
stairs, among abbots and priors, and mitred bishops, in 
gowns of satin and damask, and Wolsey in his robes of 
purple, with his golden shoes and scarlet gloves,—all 
beneath a canopy of cloth of gold. 

Before the pulpit, within the rails, stood great baskets 
full of books,—the books gathered up from the search in 
London, Oxford, and Cambridge,—ready to be burnt in 
the great fire before the crucifix, at the north gate of 
St. Paul’s. 

After the sermon, the heretics were to go three times 
round the blazing fire, with a faggot on their backs, and 
were to cast in the books. Thus Testament after Testa¬ 
ment was consumed, angels and men looking on at the 
deed. Burnet, the historian, says: “ This burning had a 
hateful appearance in it; and the people thence concluded 
that their church and those books taught different things, 
whereby their desire of reading the New Testament was 
increased.” 

This was a day to which Wolsey had looked forward 
for three years. The preacher, Fisher, announced to the 
people how many days of pardon and indulgence were 
accorded to all those who were present at that sermon, 
and afterwards the cardinal and all the bishops went 
home to dinner. 

Yet, on that very spot where stood the celebrated 
Paul’s-cross, on the north side of the cathedral, is situated 
at this moment the Depository of the Religious Tract 
Society, whence, after an interval of somewhat more than 
300 years, the writings of Wiclif, Tyndal, and Luther, 


160 THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

with many others to which they have given birth, go 
forth throughout all the world. 



St. Paul s Cross. 


Half a century since, that Society could only afford to 
rent one side of a shop, and on the other side were sold 
china and earthenware; but, by degrees, the “ little one 
has become a thousand,” under the Divine blessing ; and 
you who have seen, or may see, its fine premises, at 65, St. 
Paul’s-churchyard, inclusive of eight houses once oc- 






OLD ST. PAUL’S CROSS. 161 

cupied by the monks of St. Paul’s, may call up in your 
minds this picture of Wolsey in ermine and purple, once 
dooming the Scriptures and Tracts to the flames, where, in 
this Jubilee Year of the Bible Society, the Primate of all 
England has considered it his privilege to advocate the 
“sowing beside all waters” of the seed of Divine truth. 

From the cathedral pulpit of our capital city, he has 
borne his testimony that “ God’s word is truth,” and 
fitted to the dispersion of all “ vain traditions,” and has 
not hesitated to say of those who devised a scheme for its 
general circulation, that “ it was well that it was in their 
heart,” and that their exertions have his heartiest sym¬ 
pathy. May the word from his lips have free course and 
prevail! * 

On the 4th of May, 1530, another scene of burning 
Bibles also took place under Wolsey’s eye. He had 
begun to burn Luther’s books, at Paul’s-cross, in 1521. 
Three burnings, therefore, were witnessed on this spot, 
which has been well called “ the Thermopylae of the 
Reformation.” 

But the people still went on reading the words of life. 
Here the reformers preached Christ and his gospel. 
Multitudes gathered round the rude old rostrum, in seats 
or standing, while even the king and his court, the lord 
mayor and dignified citizens, had their covered galleries, 
in which to listen. When it was stormy, the crowd 
sheltered under what were called the shrouds of the 
cathedral. 

The churchyard was then much larger than at present. 
It was bounded by a wall which ran along Ave-Maria- 
lane, Carter-lane, and Creed-lane. Within was a spacious 
grass-plot, and on the 1 north side of the church stood 
the famous cross, “ built to put passengers in mind to 
pray for the souls of the people interred in that church- 


* See the Archbishop of Canterbury’s sermon at St. Paul’s, on the 
occasion of the Jubilee of the British and Foreign Bible Society. 


162 THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

yard.”* This cross was destroyed, in 1643, in conse¬ 
quence of a vote of Parliament. 

To return to the last days of Tyndal. He was made 
aware, in some way, of the storm that was raging in 
England, and went on the more earnestly with his trans¬ 
lation of the Old Testament from the Hebrew. He was 
now favoured with the company and assistance of his 
dear Christian friend, John Frith, who was to him what 
Timothy was to Paul of old. They were settled at Ant¬ 
werp, and Tyndal was chaplain to the English merchants 
there ; yet his abode was a hidden, and probably a chang¬ 
ing one, on account of his enemies. One to whom we 
are all so deeply indebted, was living in painful and 
perilous hiding-places, afflicted with cold, hunger, and 
every privation, in addition to the hindrances continually 
thrown in his way, to the prosecution of his work. 

Yet a heavenly atmosphere so appeared to surround 
him, that the messengers sent by King Henry VIII. to 
entrap and bring him to England, could not talk with 
him, without being ready to be converted to his senti¬ 
ments. When the last successful plot against his life was 
laid, the persons who executed it were obliged to bring 
with them officers from Brussels, for they could not trust 
those at Antwerp, where Tyndal was so much beloved. 
He was not aware of his betrayers, and was thrown into 
prison at Vilvoord, a village near Brussels, where he 
remained two years, and whence he wrote his beautiful 
letters to his friend Frith, who was martyred in Smith- 
field. Part of his work also in the prison was that edition 
of the New Testament which he had promised to give to 
the ploughboys of Gloucestershire. 

It was on Friday, the 6th day of October, in the year 
1536, that Tyndal was led forth to be put to death. He 
was fastened to the stake, crying out with a loud voice, 
“ Lord, open the King of England’s eyes! ” and was then 


* Pennant's “ London. 1 


wolsey’s dying words. 


163 


immediately strangled, and his body consumed to ashes. 
Mr. Offor says, that he appears to have been sacrificed in 
spite of the most earnest efforts of all the friends of truth 
and liberty. 

Let us contrast for a moment the death of Wolsey, six 
years before that of Tyndal, on the 29th of November, 
1530 : he expired with the language of a persecutor on 
his lips. After the well-known words, u Had I but 
served God as diligently as I have served my king, He 
would not have given me over in my gray hairs,” he 
said, “ Commend me to his royal majesty, and request 
him, in God’s name, that he be on the watch to depress 
this new sect of Lutherans, from whose mischief God in 
his mercy defend us! ” And with these words, his eyes 
being set in his head, his sight failed him, and his spirit 
passed into another world, to give account of the things 
he had done in this. 

He had indeed been clothed in purple and scarlet, he 
had had the highest nobles for his household servants, his 
steward and treasurer had waited on him in white robes, 
and his master-cook in damask satin, as they did in kings’ 
palaces. He had been for twenty years the favourite of 
all the princes in Europe ; but he died in disgrace, in 
Leicester abbey, and his very tomb there is unknown. 
In 1787, as a labourer was digging potatoes upon the 
spot where the high altar of this abbey is supposed to 
have stood, he found a human skull, with the bones all 
perfect : it was conjectured at the time that this might 
be the skull of Wolsey;—of Wolsey!—who burned the 
Bible! It is a fact to be noticed, that he thus died in 
disgrace, in the year 1530, the year of its third and great 
burning at Paul’s Cross* 

The dying voice of the martyr Tyndal had scarcely 
been uttered, before his prayer was answered, and the 
eyes of the King of England were opened so far, that he 


See “ London in the Olden Time.' 


164 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


ordered that the Bible should be placed in every church, 
for the free use of the people: but his caprice did not 
allow this permission to last long. 


The scene depicted in the Frontispiece * of this Jubilee 
Book took place in the crypt of St. Paul’s church, four 
years after Tyndal’s death. 

The Bible chained to a pillar is very large. It was 
called the “ Great Bible,” and was a revisal of Tyndal’s 
translation, made by Coverdale, and printed at Paris. 

The reader’s name is Porter: he was chosen as reader, 
because he could read well and had an audible voice. 
So many listened to him, that he was brought before 
Bonner, and accused of making tumults. Bonner sent 
him to Newgate, where, for teaching his fellow-prisoners 
what he had. learned in the Scripture, he was laid in 
the lower dungeon of all, fastened by his neck to the 
wall, and was so oppressed with bolts and irons, that in 
eight days, this tall, strong young man was found dead. 

The most conspicuous among the listeners in the pic¬ 
ture is Humphrey Monmouth, Tyndal’s friend, of whom 
we have previously spoken. Behind him is seated Ann 
Askew, her head leaning on her hand ; her child in her 
servant’s arms is by her side. 

She had been turned out of doors by her husband, a 
furious zealot of the “ Old Learning,” for studying the 
Scriptures. She was a beautiful and an educated woman, 
and her history is most touching. You see she is here 
listening earnestly to the reading of the Book for which 
she suffered martyrdom. 

* This beautiful picture was painted by George Harvey, R.S.A., 
and has been exquisitely engraved by Robert Graves, A.R.A. It 
has been reduced by that prince of engravers, the Sun, through the 
wonderful art of Photography, and is now used by the kind per¬ 
mission of the proprietors. The original large engraving, which is 
richly worth the purchase, is to be had of Messrs. Graves and Co., 
6, Pall Mall, London. 



MARTYRDOM OF ANN ASKEW. 


165 


Six years afterwards, she was called before Bonner, 
who examined her for five hours, and then, without judge 
or jury, told her she should be burnt. “ I have searched 
all the Scriptures,” said she, “yet could I never find 
that either Christ or his apostles put any creature to 
death” 

Before this hasty condemnation, she had been nearly 
starved in the prison, where she was kept for eleven days, 
what sustenance she got, being, as she says, “ through 
means of her maid, who, as she went along the streets 
with the child, made moan to the prentices, and they 
by her did send money; but who they were I never 
knew.” 

Then, strange to say, after the passing of this sentence, 
with unheard-of cruelty she was racked, to make her 
discover other persons of her sect. You shall have the 
history of her sufferings from her own lips. 

“ Then they did put me on the rack, because I con¬ 
fessed no ladies or gentlemen to be of my opinion, and 
thereon they kept me for a long time ; and because I lay 
still and did not cry, my Lord Chancellor Wriothesley 
and Mr. Rich took pains to rack me with their own 
hands till 1 was well-nigh dead ; then the lieutenant, Sir 
Anthony Knevett, caused me to be loosed, and I swooned, 
and then they recovered me again. After that, I sat two 
long hours, reasoning with my lord chancellor, on the 
bare floor, where he with many flattering words persuaded 
me to alter my opinion; then was I brought to a house 
and laid on a bed, with as weary and painful bones as 
ever had patient Job.” 

Three days afterwards this tragedy came to an end, 
The burning, like those of Nero, was deferred till night¬ 
fall. Then was Smithfield bright with torch-light. On a 
bench elevated above the crowd sat that man Wriothesley 
and his grace of Norfolk (who, in the picture, is standing 
resting on his sword, behind Ann Askew’s chair), and 
beside them sat Bowes, the lord mavor. 


166 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


To the spot, Ann (her bones being all dislocated) re¬ 
quired to be carried in a chair, and there she was joined 
on the gloomy pile by three fellow-sufferers,—the last 
group of martyrs in the reign of Henry VIII., the mis¬ 
called father of our Keformation. 

Wriothesley then presented to Ann the king’s pardon, 
if she would recant. “ I came not hither,” said she, 
“ to deny my Lord and Master.” Then were the flames 
kindled, and the spirits of the martyrs ascended to 
heaven! 


[The other three martyrs are, in the picture, standing 
near the Duke of Norfolk. John Adams, the first, is 
leaning with his back to the pillar; John Lascelles, the 
second, and one of the king’s household, is earnestly 
listening to the reading of Porter; and Belenians, the 
third, is a little behind Adams. 

Behind Ann Askew^s chair stands the wife of a London 
citizen, apparently listening with deep attention. An 
aged man is led in, leaning on the arm of his daughter, 
whose little boy bears a chair for his grandfather. A 
blind beggar, in the foreground, has also crept in to hear 
the reading. 

On the right, in the shadowy part of the picture, 
Bonner is the most conspicuous, accompanied by his 
archdeacon, and Drs. Hugh Weston and Storey. The 
bishop looks vexed at this public reading, and a monk 
near him aids him in the resolve to put it down. 

On the left, wearing a long beard, is Gardiner, bishop 
of Winchester, and Lord Cromwell, who had promoted 
this reading: beside them stand Miles Coverdale and 
Richard Grafton.] 

While all this was passing in England, there had been 
born in an obscure village in Saxony, a remarkable man, 
named Martin Luther. He was born November 10th, 
1483, about 100 years after the death of Wiclif. It is not 




LUTHER. 


167 

necessary for us to enter into the detail of his history, for 
the simple reason that it is already so well known. Who 
has not heard of Martin Luther ?—the child brought up 

in poverty and hard¬ 
ship, singingChristmas 
carols for a morsel of 
bread, afterwards the 
studious young monk 
in the library of Er- 
furth monastery, por¬ 
ing over the Latin Bi¬ 
ble, then newly print¬ 
ed, and “finding there 
much more than he 
had ever seen in his 
missal,” and still, years 
after, resorting to the 
chained Bible in the 
church of his convent, 
and, while he learned 
mttheb. portions of it by heart, 

resolving that he would unchain it for the world. 

If you do not know the history of this great German 
reformer, you must seek to know it. The whole reading¬ 
time of your future lives might be well occupied in filling 
up this mere outline of the Story of the Book, which 
cannot even name the names, much less give definite 
sketches of the lives, of all the men of the Book. 

It is enough to tell you now, that Luther was raised up 
by God, on the continent of Europe, in the sixteenth cen¬ 
tury, to struggle manfully with that great Roman system, 
of which you have so long been reading. He was a man 
of mighty mind, and of much prayer, who cast off gra¬ 
dually the worst superstitions of his order, and at last, as 
has been beautifully said, by the author of “ Universal 
History on Scriptural Principles,” rushed like a torrent 
from the mountains, through the channels of the water- 





168 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


courses of the Divine word (stopped up for ages by Satan 
and foolish men), and carried away with his force those 
blocks and barriers, so that ever since, that word has had 
free course, and prevailed. 

This was a mighty deed for mortal man ! It was not 
accomplished in his own strength. We again advise you 
to see how he performed it, during his life of sixty-three 
years. 

Notwithstanding all his aggressions on the papacy (for 
he even burnt its bulls, or decrees), he died in peace in 
his native town, in 1546, the year of the martyrdom of 
Ann Askew. 


With regard to the 300 years which have elapsed since 
this memorable era, they will come into review, more or 
less, in the history of the Bible and the Bible Society for 
the last fifty years. 

The newly Reformed Church in all lands, with its 
printed Bible in its hand, had its many martyrs. It also 
needed to be purified by suffering; but “ the king who 
cast into prison, or gave to the flames, men like Hitton, 
Bennet, Patmore, Bayfield, Bilney, and Frith, should 
never have been called ‘ the father of the Reformation in 
England.’ He was its executioner.” And he was worthy 
to be the father of a queen like Mary, who thought to 
quench in blood, once more, the dawning light of Divine 
truth. But it was unquenchable. 

Between the years 1380 and 1804, that is, between 
Wiclif’s first English version of the Scriptures, in manu¬ 
script, and the establishment of the British and Foreign 
Bible Society, the Scriptures were not only translated 
but printed in the ancient languages which were the 
roots of all the others : 

1. In Latin, printed at Mayence, in 1462. 

2. In Hebrew, printed at Brescia, in 1488. 

3. In Greek, the New Testament of Erasmus, in 1516. 

4. In Syriac, the Peshito version, in 1552 



VERSIONS PREVIOUS TO 1804 . 


169 

These were chiefly .combined in Polyglot Bibles for the 
learned. The whole Bible was also printed, in the fol¬ 
lowing European versions: 

1. Bohemian, by the United Brethren, in 1488. 

2. Belgic, or Flemish, in 1518. 

3. French, by Le Fevre, in 1530. 

4. German, by Luther, in 1530. 

5. English, by Tyndal and Coverdale, in 1535. 

6. Swedish, by Laurentius, in 1541. 

7. Danish, ordered by King Christian III., in 1550. 

8. Polish, or Old Cracow Bible, in 1561. 

9. Spanish, by De Reyna, in 1569. 

10. Sclavonic, ordered by the Duke of Ostrog, in 

1581. 

11. Carniolan, by Dalmatin, in 1584. 

12. Icelandic, or Norse, in 1584. 

13. Welsh, by Dr. Morgan, in 1588. 

14. Hungarian, by Pastor Caroli, in 1589. 

15. Dutch, in the year of the plague at Leyden, in 

1637. 

16. Italian, by Diodati, in 1641. 

17. Wallachian, or Moldavian, in 1668. 

18. Romanese, in 1679. 

19. Irish, by Bishop Bedell, in 1686. 

20. Livonian, or Lettish, by Ernest Gluck, in 1689. 

21. Esthonian, by Fisher, in 1689. 

22. Gaelic, in Roman characters, in 1690. 

23. Wendish, or Lusatian, by four Lutheran pastors, 

in 1728. 

24. Reval-Esthonian, at the expense o 4 ^ount Zinzen- 

dorf, in 1739. 

25. Portuguese, in 1751. 

26. Manks, for the Isle of Man, by the Society lor 

Promoting Christian Knowledge, in 1767. 

The New Testament or parts of the Scriptures had 
also been translated or printed in— 

27. Servian, in 1493; 


170 


TIIE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


28. Russian, by Skorina, in 1525;, 

29. Finnish, by the Bishop of Abo, in 1548; 

30. Judeo-Spanish, in 1553; 

31. French Basque, at the expense of the Queen of 

Navarre, in 1571; 

32. Lapponese, in 1755; 

comprising thirty-two versions for Europe, in the com¬ 
mon tongue, and four for the learned world. 

The New Testament had been printed— 


FOR AFRICA. 

1. In Coptic, in 1716. 

2. In Sahidic (one-third of the New Testament), in 1799. 


FOR AMERICA. 

1. In New-England-Indian (the whole Bible), by Eliot, 


in 1663. 

2. For the Mohawks (a small portion), in 1769. 

3. For Greenland (the New Testament), by 

Egede and Fabricius, in 1799. 


Hans 


FOR ASIA. 

1. In Turkish-Tartar, by an Englishman, in 1666. 

2. Karaite-Tartar, date unknown. 

3. In Arabic (whole Bible), in 1700. 

4. In Tamil, by Schultze, in 1724. 

5. In Malayan (whole Bible), by Leidekker, in 1733. 

6. In Cingalese (the four Gospels), in 1739. 

7. In Calmuc (various portions), in 1750. 

8. In Hindustani, by Schultze, in 1758. 


9. In Bengalee, in 1801. 

In ancient languages .... 4 

For Europe.32 

For Africa.2 

For America. 3 

For Asia . . 9 


Total 


50 






VERSIONS PREVIOUS TO 1804 . 


171 


—completing the number of fifty different languages, in 
which the Archbishop of Canterbury said, in his sermon 
at St. Paul’s, “ the Society at its establishment found ex¬ 
isting versions.” We thought you would like to know 
what these versions were, and have abstracted the list of 
them for you, from that most valuable work of Messrs. 
Bagster and Sons, “ The Bible of Every Land,” in which 
may be found a mass of that kind of information, concern¬ 
ing the spread of God’s word, which even “ the angels 
might desire to look into,” and which has never, in one 
view, been presented to the world before. 

This list may possibly seem to you to contain mere 
names of books and men, but to those who could cast the 
eye of their minds over the most interesting histories 
which hang upon each line of it, it would appear, as it 
is, a record which will assuredly be thought worthy of 
remembrance even in the world to come. 

Some of the versions have been already noticed. The 
Dutch, at Leyden, was the work of twenty-eight transla¬ 
tors, who always met and entered upon their task with 
prayer. Six hours were daily devoted to it, while the 
plague was raging round them. Not one was attacked 
by the disease, yet not one long survived the completion 
of the sacred volume. They were all men of great learn¬ 
ing, and many declared that they had never before laboured 
as they did at the translation of the Bible. 

In Turkish-Tartary; the missionaries while at work had 
to contend with all the inclemency of the weather; and 
often, from the incursions of the robbers, were obliged to 
bury their types. 

The meetings for the translation of the Malayan version 
were always begun with prayer and concluded with thanks¬ 
giving, and every difference of opinion reconsidered in 
solitude, with the greatest care. 

The history of the Tamil version is extremely inte¬ 
resting. This language is spoken in Southern India, by 
more than six millions of people. It was begun by the 


172 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Danish missionary, Ziegenbalg, who died at thirty-six, in 
the midst of his earnest labours; also by the indefatigable 
Schultze, a missionary from the Society in England for 
Promoting Christian Knowledge. He devoted to this 
translation six hours a-day, amid the heats of India; and 
the result of the first distribution of that Bible was such, 
that when the Bible Society arose, the ten or twelve 
thousand Protestant Christians were clamorous for more, 
saying to Dr. Buchanan, “ We do not want bread or 
money from you, but we want the word of God.” 

Then the New-England-Indian, translated by the 
English missionary, John Eliot, who had first, with the 
assistance of the native Mohicans, to create the language, 
without any aid from books, and executed a translation 
of the entire Scriptures! “ The secret of his success is 

made known in a few lines which are inscribed at the 
close of his ‘ Grammar of the New England Language,’ 
published in 1666—‘ Prayers and pains, through faith in 
Christ flesus, will accomplish anything.’ ” 

But although, when the Society was first established, 
the translations of the Bible, in whole or in part, may 
have been about fifty, and it was considered that about 
four millions of Bibles had been circulated in the world 
since the invention of printing, you must consider what 
is meant by the words “ four millions.” Think first 
of a hundred Bibles; then of ten hundred, or a thou¬ 
sand; then of a thousand thousand; then of four times 
that. It seems a great many. It takes a very long while 
to count a million, straight-forward. But then you have 
also to think of the number of people in the world,— 
not four thousand thousand, but ten hundred thousand 
thousand! And what are 4 to 1000? 

These four millions of Bibles were in circulation from 
various sources. Some say there must have been more than 
four millions. There were some societies, both in England 
and in foreign countries, which arose in the eighteenth 
century, among the separate sections of the Christian 


REVIEW OF THE NARRATIVE. 173 

Church, having in view missions to the heathen and the 
local diffusion of the word of God, and their efforts, 
made separately from each other, had done much. It 
now remained for their united efforts to do more; and 
the only object in which they could all unite was, the 
circulation throughout the world of the sacred Book, 
without note or comment. How this idea of union for 
that, word’s sake arose, and how it prospered and has 
received the blessing of God, is the Story that remains 
to be told, and we hope you wish to hear it. 

We shall sum up what we have already set before you 
nearly in the words of Dr. Gaussen, of Geneva ; for they 
contain a review of our whole narrative. 

When one thinks that the Bible has been copied during 
thirty centuries, as no book of man ever was, or ever will 
be, that it was subjected to all the wandering experience 
of Israel, that it was transported seventy years to Babylon, 
that it had seen itself so often persecuted, or forgotten, or 
forbidden, or burnt,—when one thinks that it has had to 
traverse the first three centuries of pagan persecutions, 
when persons found in possession of the holy books were 
thrown to the wild beasts,—next the seventh, eighth, and 
ninth centuries, when false books and false legends were 
everywhere multiplied,—the tenth and eleventh centuries, 
when so few could read even among princes,—the twelfth, 
thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, when the use of the 
Scriptures in the vulgar tongue was punished with death, 
and when the books of the ancient fathers were mutilated, 
—then ice can perceive how certain it is that, on the one 
hand, the Providence of God has put forth its mighty 
power, causing tlie Church of the Jews to give us, in its 
integrity, the very book which records its revolts, which 
predicts its ruin, which describes Jesus Christ;—and, on 
the other hand, that that same Providence has caused 
the Roman Church (which in particular forbade its people 
to read the sacred books, and gave them in the stead of 



174 


THE BOOK AND ITS STOUT. 


the word of God the traditions of the middle ages; to 
transmit to us, in all their purity, those very Scriptures, 
which say that Dome would be the seat of a terrible 
apostasy, which say of images, “ Thou shalt not make or 
bow down to them”; of unknown tongues, “ Thou shalt 
not use them”; of the cup, “Drink ye all of it”; of 
marriage, “It is honourable in all”; and of the Virgin 
Mary, “ Woman, what have I to do with thee?” 

“ Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words 
shall not pass away ” (Matt. 24.35). “ The grass withereth, 
the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand for 
ever” (Isaiah 40. 8). 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY 


PART II. 

THE BIBLE SOCIETY’S HOUSE. 


THE PRINTING AND BINDING OF THE BIBLE. 









CHAPTER I 


THE BIBLE HOUSE.-ITS LIBRARY.— WICLIF’s TESTAMENT.-TYN- 

DAL’s BIBLE.- COVERDALe’s BIBLE.-THE GENEVA BIBLE.— 

THE BISHOPS’ BIBLE.-AUTHORISED VERSION.-WELSH BIBLE.— 

EUROPEAN LANGUAGES.-SWEDISH BIBLE.-POLYGLOTS.—DUTCH 

bible.—luther’s bible. — bohemian bible.—eastern lan¬ 
guages.-PERSIAN TESTAMENT. — PALI, HINDU WEE, BENGALEE, 

ETC.-SEPARATE TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE INTO CHINESE.— 

THE LORD’S PRAYER IN ALL LANGUAGES.-THE DOUAY VERSION. 

-THE SOCIETY’S DEPARTED FRIENDS.-THE MANUSCRIPT LI¬ 
BRARY.-THE BRETON BIBLE.—WALES AND BRITTANY.-SYRIAN, 

PERSIAN, CHINESE, ETHIOPIC, AND AMHARIC, MANUSCRIPTS.-THE 

AMHARIC BIBLE.- MR. JOWETT’s ACCOUNT OF IT. - HOW THE 

SOCIETY OBTAINS ITS TRANSLATIONS.-THEIR REVISION.-THE 

GENERAL COMMITTEE ROOM.-THE CASE OF BIBLES.-THE BIBLE 

FOR THE BLIND.-THE SUB-COMMITTEE ROOM.-PORTRAITS.- 

THE BIBLE WAREHOUSE. 

We have now given you the history of what are called 
“ the manuscript ages of the Bible,” when it could only 
be written out with great labour, and much cost; and we 
have alluded to the years in which it was first multiplied 
by printing, but not in any measure adequately to the 
wants of the world. 

You have, therefore, it is probable, some desire to hear 
all you can about the House of the British and Foreign 
Bible Society, in Earl-street, built within the precincts of 
the old monastery of the Black-friars,—the spot from 
which the word of God now goes out to all the earth. 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


178 



Do you think, as we did, that there are warehouses 
and workshops, somewhere in the back premises of this 
Bible House, where they print all their own books, and 

bind them before 
they send them 
away, at the rate 
of many thou¬ 
sands a week, all 
over the world, 
and all the year 
round ? Well, 
then, this was a 
mistake; for the 
Bible House it¬ 
self consists only 
of warehouses for 
its Bibles, offices 
for its depositary 
and accountant, 
rooms for its 
committees and 
secretaries, and a 
library of the va¬ 
rious editions of 
The Bible Society’s House. j^e Holy Scrip¬ 

tures, and works relating to the numerous translations. 


THE LIBRARY 

contains some curious literary treasures. You would find 
there at least one copy of the Scriptures in every lan¬ 
guage in which they have been printed, and in many 
cases several editions of each. Here is Wiclif’s New 
Testament, printed in 1810,—426 years after his death. 
The spelling is very different from that which we now 
use. The following is a specimen; John 1. 1-5:— 













VERSIONS OF WICRIF, TYNDAL, AND COVERDALE. 179 

l IN the bigynnynge was the word and the word was at god, and 
god was the word, 2 this was in the bigynnynge at god, 3 alle 
thingis weren made bi hym: and withouten hym was made no thing, 
that thing that was made 4 i n him was liif, and the liif was the li3t 
of men, 5 and the lijt schyneth in derknessisi and derknessis com- 
prehendiden not it. 

You may also see Tyndal’s Bible in black letter, of 
which the following is a specimen; John 1. 1-5:— 

1 £$ tfje beghtngnge bias tfje faorbe, anti tfje faorbe faas toitfj 
©ob: anti tfje faorbe boas ©ah. 2 &fje same boas tn the be= 
gmngntje faftfj ©oh. 3 gm tfjtwjes facre mabe bn it, anti faith 
out it, faas rnabe notfjmge, that faas mabe. 4 En it faas Igfe, 
anb the Igfe faas the Iggfjt of men, 6 anb the Iggfjt sfjgnetfj in 
the harcknes, but the harcknes comprehenheti it not 

This is the version which our forefathers welcomed so 
warmly, and for which they suffered so much,—the New 
Testament which Anthony Dalaber “ read on his knees, 
with many a deep sigh and salt tear.” The date of this 
is 1524. 

Then there is Coverdale’s Bible, printed in 1535, 
dedicated to Henry VIII. This is the version of which 
it was said, by that capricious king, “ Let it go abroad 
among my people,”—“ the Boke of the whole Bible in 
English,” which was laid in the choir of every church 
“ for every man that willed to look and read thereon,”— 
not that Henry continued his permission to the end of 
his own reign, for the clergy persuaded him that the 
people made a bad use of it. By another act which he 
passed, he forbade the lower classes to read it, but allowed 
it as an indulgence to “ noblemen, gentlemen, and ladies 
of quality, in their houses, orchards, and gardens, quietly; 
and to read it to themselves alone, not to others.” Still, 
from 1526 to 1546, when Henry VIII. died, a period of 
twenty years, thirty-one impressions of the Bible or New 


180 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Testament issued from the press, besides several editions 
of separate books of Scripture. 

In his son Edward VI.’s short reign of seven years, the 
word of God was read with greediness, and every one 
that could read bought the Book, and busily read it, or 
heard it read,—many elderly persons learning to read on 
purpose. Eleven editions of the Bible and seven of the 
New Testament were published in Edward’s reign. 

Then, as we know, in the reign of Mary, the Bible 
was once more banished from the churches, and its friends 
exiled or brought to the stake. 

Many of these exiles, however, took refuge in Geneva, 
and thence, after Mary’s death, came the English Geneva 
Bible, which was but a revision of Tyndal’s version, 
executed after his immortal work had been diligently 
compared with the Hebrew and Greek texts. This whole 
Bible was published at Geneva, in 1560, the second year 
of Elizabeth’s reign. This was the Bible most generally 
used in private houses, and was the first English Bible 
divided into verses. 

In this library may be seen the “ Bishops’ Bible,” a 
folio book, one of the two new translations published in 
the reign of Elizabeth, under the superintendence of 
Archbishop Parker, who employed in the work eight 
bishops, and six other persons, himself revising the whole, 
—a work that occupied three years. It was published in 
1568, and when finished, the archbishop said, with good 
old Simeon, “ Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart 
in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen 
thy salvation.” The copy of this Bible, belonging to the 
Bible Society, is much worm-eaten, but has been pre¬ 
served by a new binding, in the style of the olden time. 

Then, of course, there is the Authorised English ver¬ 
sion, made in the reign of King James,—the only one 
which the British and Foreign Bible Society has ever cir¬ 
culated : all others it keeps as curiosities in its library, as 
well as for the purpose of comparison and reference. This 


WELSH VERSION. 


181 


version was compiled from all previous translations col¬ 
lated with the original versions, by forty-seven of the 
most eminent scholars of that time, and the basis of the 
version was still Tyndal’s. It was published in 1611, 
and continues to be our Bible to the present day. 

Here also you will find the first Welsh Bible ever 
printed, — the version of Dr. Morgan, afterwards bishop 
of St. Asaph. It was printed in 1588, and is in black 
letter. Here is a specimen ; John 1. 1-5 :— 

2 fcerfjreuat! gr aetft 2 gair, a‘r gait otto ggti a a 
©tfin oetiti 2 gait. 

2 ffffont ottto gn 2 tiedjreuati ggti a JBufo. 

3 Crfcjgtfoa d 2 gbmaetfjpfogtj pob petfj, ac fjebtJbo tf nt 
fornaeb turn a’r a ftmaetfjpfogb. 

\ gntfao d gr BEbb bgfrigb, a’r bgfogb mbb oleum bgntott. 

5 goleutxi a lefogrrfjobb gn g tgtogllfocfj, a’r tgfoglKnri) 
tub acbb gn et amggffrtb. 

But now, you must look round on the cases of Bibles 
in all the various European languages. Among them 
you will see an old Swedish Bible, which is a remarkable 
curiosity in binding. A picture has been painted on the 
edges of the leaves, which you cannot see when the book 
is closed, but one cover being thrown back, and the 
leaves slightly separated, you perceive an antique picture 
of “ Christian” on his journey up the straight and 
narrow way to the heavenly city. 

Not far off, is a case of “ Polyglots,” a word which 
signifies, the Bible printed in many languages at once , in 
separate columns; for instance, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, 
and English, very necessary for learned persons to com¬ 
pare. If you were making a fresh translation of the 
Bible, you would find it convenient to consult a Polyglot. 
These books, as you may imagine, are large. Here is a 
Bible in Dutch, weighing forty pounds, with its brazen 
clasps, and cover of solid wood, “ bound in boards,” 


182 THE BOOK AND ITS STORV. 

which did not mean pasteboards in the days when that 
was printed,—a great contrast to the pocket Bibles of 
the present times, weighing only eight or nine ounces, 
and to the tiny edition of the book of Psalms in short¬ 
hand, found in this library. 

Would you like to see Luther’s German Bible ? The 
following is a specimen ; John 1. 1-5 :— 

3m 9lnfang mar bag 9Bort, unb bag SBort mar beb ©ott, unb ®ott 
mar bag 2Bort. 

2 2)affelbige mar im -2lnfang bety ©ott. 

3 5Ule £>inge finb burcfy baffelbige gemacbt, unb oljne baffelbige 
iff nidjtg gemadjt, mag geniad)t iff. 

4 3n ityrn mar bag £ebeit, unb bag Seben mar bag £icf?t ber 
«Kenfcben. 

5 Unb bag £icfyt fcfyeinet in ber Blnfternifjj, unb bie ftnufterniffe 
tyaben eg nic^t begrifen. 

Here is his Testament of 1524, and the whole Bible of 
1567. He was the man “ ordained to present his nation 
with the written word.” He was shut up on purpose to 
do it, in the solitary old castle of the Wartburg, where 
the narrow windows of his turret looked out on “ dark, 
untrodden, boundless forests,” and here he sat down to 
his Hebrew and Greek Bibles, as he would never have 
been able to do in the city of Wittenberg, to fashion 
that weapon of heavenly temper—the Scripture—in the 
tongue of the common people, without which all his 
battles against the corruptions of the Church of Rome 
would have been in vain. 

He brought forth from his seclusion a deeper faith in 
God's word than ever, and with it, as the “ sword of the 
Spirit,” he cut asunder the bonds of Christendom. This 
version was, however, before it went forth among the 
families of Germany, revised most diligently by Luther 
and his learned friends. They were known sometimes to 
return for fourteen days to the re-consideration of a single 


BOHEMIAN AND PERSIAN VERSIONS. 


183 


line, and even a word. Melancthon assisted in this re¬ 
vision. Luther’s own copy of the edition of 1541 is now 
deposited in the British Museum. 

Here is the version of the Bible for Bohemia,—that 
important section of Austria, which will make you think 
of the poor, persecuted Bohemian Christians. They were 
the very first people who turned to account the art of 
printing for the more general distribution of the Scrip¬ 
tures, A. D. 1488. This fact is stated in a letter recently 
addressed by the Rev. P. La Trobe to the committee of the 
Bible Society, enclosing one hundred pounds as a Jubilee 
offering from the Brethren’s Society lor the Furtherance 
of the Gospel. The Bohemian version in this library is 
dated 1596. The following is a specimen; John 1.1-5 

01a pocatfu btyl’o <Sfotro, a to (SFomo o b 95o1)a, a to Sfotoo 
biff’ SBuf). 2 $o btyfo na pocdtfu b SSotja. 3 SBffecfb rcecty ffrge 
ne bctnenty fau, a beg netyo nic nenj ocineno, cog bcineno geft. 4 SB 
item ftnjot btyl’, a gimot btyf fwetfo Ubf 6 U to froetl’o m Umno* 
ftecfy fnjti, ale tmi) ge neobfd^l’i). 

On another side of the room are versions of Scripture 
in the Asiatic languages, the tongues of the sons of Shem. 

This is the Persian Testament translated by that be¬ 
loved missionary, the Rev. Henry Martyn, published by 
the Bible Society in 1827, also in 1837, and in 1847 ; 
John 1. 1-5:— 

j l 'y Dp ^\ j tfcXJul jD Djj 

jib * * DjJ j * 

j\ j\ J Jwij j\ 

ciyr-y* & 

j * jy u Lj\ J* j 

* (jLxs'o 


184 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


A recent traveller, Mr. Southgate, declares that he found 
copies of this version in every city in Persia through 
which he passed. Ah ! how this result would have 
cheered the heart of that “ man of God,” as, feeble and 
lonely, in the garden beneath the walls of Shiraz, he 
sacrificed his life to his determination to accomplish the 
translation of this Testament ! How interesting is the 
history of the conversion of the Persian Mollah Mahomet 
Ramah, from the gift of this New Testament! We will 
give it you, in his own words : “ There came to Persia, 
an Englishman, who taught the religion of Christ, with 
a boldness we had never seen, in the midst of much scorn 
and ill-treatment from the rabble. He was young, and 
feeble with disease. I was then a decided enemy to in¬ 
fidels, and I, too, visited this teacher to treat him with scorn 
and contempt. These evil feelings left me beneath the in¬ 
fluence of his gentleness; and before I quitted Shiraz, I paid 
him a parting visit. The memory of our conversation will 
never fade from my mind : it sealed my conversion. He 
gave me a book ; it has ever been my constant companion, 
—the study of it my most delightful occupation. On one 
of the blank leaves was written, ‘ There is joy in heaven 
over one sinner that repenteth (signed) Henry Martyn .’ ” 
This is the Pali version, the language of the Buddhists 
of India; John 1. 1, 2:— 



One of the Buddhist priests became a sincere convert 
while translating it, and finished and revised the work 
after the sudden death of his teacher, Mr. Tolfrey. The 
great translators for the continent of India have been 
Dr. Carey, Dr. Marshman, and the Rev. W. Ward, 
Baptist missionaries at Serampore. They reached India 


CHINESE VERSION. 


185 

in 1793 ; and in 1806 they were engaged in printing or 
translating the Scriptures in six languages. In 1819, 
they were printing the word of God in twenty-seven 
languages. This great and glorious work was carried 
on chiefly at the expense of the Bible Society. The 
result of these vast labours in India, as of the Chinese 
Scriptures in China, is yet to be seen in full; but it is 
beginning to appear. The whole arose from the quiet 
proposition of one man, who was then obtaining a live¬ 
lihood by the labour of his hands, to an association of 
ministers, “ whether it was not a practicable duty to 
attempt the conversion of the heathen.” This man, 
Mr., afterwards Dr., Carey, had been teaching himself a 
language as he sat at his work. God was preparing him 
to become the first of oriental scholars, for the sake of 
his word. The first collection, in 1793, for this magni¬ 
ficent object, among the Baptists, amounted to 13/. 2s. 6d ., 
but since then the British and Foreign Bible Society have 
afforded assistance to Dr. Carey and his associates, and to 
the various Bible Societies of India, to the amount of 
more than two hundred thousand pounds! 

Two or three days before the death of Dr. Carey, in 
1834, he was carried down-stairs in a state of extreme 
exhaustion ; and the Rev. G. Gogerley, then a missionary 
in Bengal, and his intimate friend, tells us, that the last- 
revised sheets of the last language into which he had 
translated the Scriptures, lay upon the table. His work 
was done, and he was ready to depart. He had laboured 
in India for forty years, and had given to her the word 
of God, in whole or in part, in about thirty different 
languages. His simple faith in the Lord Jesus, and his 
deep humility in that last hour, were very beautiful. 

Here is the Chinese Bible,—the book that may soon, 
we hope, be read by 360 millions of people, who are 
almost all still ignorant of its message. Two different 
translations were made about 30 years ago. Dr. Marsh- 
man with the help of other missionaries, and of Johannes 


186 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Lassar, a native of China, made a translation, and printed 
it, for the Bible Society, at Serampore, in 1822; Dr. 
Morrison and Dr. Milne, who had laboured in China from 
the year 1807, completed their version about the same 
time, and the former presented a printed copy at the 
anniversary of the Bible Society in London, in the year 
1824. 

Each translation was good in its way, and they were 
made independently of one another. Dr. Medhurst and 
other Protestant missionaries at present in China, have 
recently completed a revised edition comprising both the 
Old and New Testaments. 

It is said that the Chinese Testament can now be 
printed in China for the small sum of fourpence! 

The library of the Bible House also contains a present 
from councillor Auer, the Director of the Imperial print¬ 
ing office at Vienna,—a specimen of the Lord’s Prayer 
written in every known language of the world, and in 
every dialect of the language, and in every age of the 
dialect. These large sheets give you a very comprehen¬ 
sive impression of earth’s many tongues. You can read 
the Lord’s Prayer in English, as it was written in the 
year 1160, in 1370, in 1430, in 1526, and so on, with 
slight variations, up to the year 1800, which is the last 
given. This collection is called the “ Sprachenhalle,” 
and was printed at the expense of the Emperor of Austria, 
under the superintendence of councillor Auer. 

We will now look at the Douav Bible, which is also 
contained in this collection, for you may often hear it 
mentioned, and it is right that you should have a little 
history of this translation. 

The Douay version was made by the Romanists them¬ 
selves ; for, as they found, “ by the Bible being printed 
so often in English, that it was impossible to keep it out 
of the hands of the common people,” they resolved to have 
an English translation of their own. 

The New Testament they first printed at Rheims, in 


THE DOUAY VERSION. 


187 


1582, “ translated out of Latin, with notes and necessary 
helps (as they say) for the better understanding of the 
text, and the discovery of the corruption of other trans¬ 
lations.” It is not , you perceive, the Bible without note 
or comment. 

The Old Testament was printed at Douay, in 1609. 
Fuller says of it, “ It is a translation that had need to 
be translated ”; a great number of Greek words, such as 
azymes, pasche , etc., are left untranslated, which perplexes 
common readers ; and the learned Fulke observes, “ that 
it is not truly translated ; that the translators have always 
laboured to suppress the light of truth, under one pre¬ 
tence or another.” The notes connected with this Douay 
version are considered by Protestants as even more inju¬ 
rious than the text itself, which has been frequently re¬ 
vised and reprinted to this day for circulation among 
Roman Catholics, and is somewhat more conformed than 
it was to our own Authorised version, but it always con¬ 
tains the apocryphal books. We need hardly add , that 
the Douay Bible is never circulated by the Bible Society. 

If any persons possessing rare editions of the Scriptures 
wish to present them to this library, they may confer a 
benefit on the Society, and are sure to have their gifts 
carefully preserved. 

To those who have long known this Bible House, the 
library is hallowed ground, as having witnessed, from 
time to time, the presence of so many of its beloved 
friends and founders, now gathered to their rest. Of the 
latter, two only, and those near the end of their pilgrim¬ 
age, have survived to witness its Jubilee,—Dr. SteinkopfF, 
and the venerable Wm. Alers Han key, Esq. 

The devotedness of those who first laboured in this 
noble cause, was illustrated in the sentiment expressed by 
its first president, Lord Teignmouth, who, in his dying 
hours, said, “ I would rather have been president of the 
Bible Society, than governor-general of India.” This 
devotedness, it is evident, still animates those who are 


188 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


honourably employed in conducting the proceedings of 
the Society,—and never may it be wanting! 

THE MANUSCRIPT AND DUPLICATE LIBRARY. 

Adjoining this interesting apartment (the library) is a 
lesser one, called the Manuscript Library, and here, m 
several locked and numbered cases, are contained the 
written versions in the possession of the Society,—some 
of them yet unprinted, and some the treasured originals 
from which the Bibles circulated by the Society have 
been printed. 

The Old Testament in the language of Lower Brittany 
is here. It is called the “ Breton Bible.” Brittany is a 
large country in the north-west of France, 800,000 of 
whose people speak or understand a language very like 
Welsh. Those who live in the large towns can under¬ 
stand French, but nearly half a million of persons in the 
country villages can only speak the Breton language, in 
which, as yet, the Old Testament has never been printed. 
The manuscript version in this library was made more 
than twenty years ago, by Legonidec, a learned Breton, 
who also made one of the New Testament, which was 
printed in 1827. 

Though in many respects an excellent version, it is not 
an intelligible one to the common people in general, and 
the Bible Society in 1847 printed, and has since circu¬ 
lated, another version of the New Testament made by 
the Rev. J. Jenkins, missionary of the Baptist Missionary- 
Society, labouring in that country; and this version is 
found to be better understood. 

Let us hope that very soon this locked-up jewel, the 
Old Testament , of Legonidec’s translation, may be called 
for by the people of Brittany, revised, simplified, if need 
be, and distributed throughout the country. 

A Welshman requires but little study to enable him to 
converse, read, and write, in the Breton language. It might 


VARIOUS MANUSCRIPT VERSIONS. 


189 


please you to see the 1st verse of the 1st chapter of John 
in the Welsh and in the Breton tongues:— 

Welsh .—“Yn y dechreuad yr oedd y Gair, a’r Gair 
oedd gyd a Duw, a Duw oedd y Gair.” 

Breton .—“ Er gommansamant e oa ar Ger, hag ar Ger 
a gand Doue, hag ar Ger a oa Doue.” 

It is said, by those who have visited that country, that 
Brittany is the darkest part of France, and the most 
under the dominion of the priests of Rome. The priests 
read the liturgy in Latin; but in the country districts 
they preach in Breton. They do not favour the growth 
of the French language; and Breton will yet probably 
long be spoken by the common people. 

Here is another treasure—a Bible in manuscript, once 
belonging to the Nestorian Christians, bearing the marks 
of water, fire, smoke, and hard usage. 

We cannot but look with great interest on the precious 
book in its old manuscript form,—in the form which it 
took long years so carefully to transcribe, and which was 
then preserved in its pocket of thick leather, and slung to 
the shoulder of the pilgrim-missionary, and carried by 
him, perhaps, many hundred miles. 

Look at this ancient Syrian Pentateuch, written on 
vellum. It has been badly used before it came here; its 
edges are stained with damp and mould. 

These beautiful characters, delicately emblazoned in 
red, and black, and gold, are Persian. 

And here is a copy of the Ethiopic Scriptures, in 
manuscript; the penmanship of which is most beautifully 
executed. Every page is guiltless of blot or erasure. 
Another Ethiopic manuscript, emblazoned with grim 
figures, has been presented to the Bible Society by that 
kindred institution, the Church Missionary Society. 

The Rev. William Jowett, in an admirable paper he 
has written for the Bible Society, concerning its Jubilee 
Year, tells some interesting particulars concerning the 
Amharic version to be seen in this library. 


190 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


More than forty years ago, the French consul at Cairo, 
M. Asselin, met with a learned old Abyssinian, who had 
been the instructor of Bruce the traveller, and of Sir 
William Jones. M. Asselin, having saved this man’s life, 
employed him afterwards in translating the Scriptures, 
book after book, from the ancient into the modern 
tongue of Abyssinia. You will remember that, into the 
ancient language, Gheez, they had been translated by 
Frumentius, a.d. 330. 

When finished, the work long remained on M. Asselin’s 
hands. He offered it to the French King, to the Emperor 
of Russia, and to the Vatican library, in Rome ; but they 
all looked coolly upon it. At last, in the year 1820, the 
Bible Society, having heard of this version from Mr. 
Jowiett, who had resided in the East, asked him to return 
to Egypt and purchase it for them. He ascertained its 
accuracy by comparing the first, middle, and final verse 
of every chapter,—a process which occupied him eleven 
days: the purchase-money w T as 1250/. It was then revised 
by T. P. Platt, Esq., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, 
and printed, and is now distributed in Abyssinia. 

There are many instances recorded of the readiness 
with which the people there are now receiving the word 
of God. Mr. Gobat, the missionary, persuaded some of 
their own priests to distribute it. He says, “ If 1 had 
had some thousands of New Testaments, I could have 
given them all away to eager readers. I know some in¬ 
stances where persons have given all their property to 
purchase a New Testament. One man gave two oxen 
for a copy of the four Gospels, and another gave four 
oxen for the same.” 

Mr. Jowett also tells us, with regard to the Turkish - 
Greek and Arabic versions, that remarkable and provi¬ 
dential circumstances have prepared and placed these also 
in the hands of the Bible Society,—circumstances which 
the Society could not have ordered for itself,—showing 
that the finger erf God had prepared, in different parts of 


HOW TRANSLATIONS ARE OliTALNJED. 191 

the world, the persons competent to translate the Scrip¬ 
ture (which is indeed no easy task), and all in readiness 
for these times of its universal circulation. 

Do you wish to know the way in which the Bible 
Society has generally obtained its later translations? It 
is in this manner: the missionaries who are sent to preach 
the gospel in heathen countries, make it their first care 
to learn the language of those countries, and to translate 
the Scriptures into it, if they do not already exist,—for 
the missionary is nothing without the Bible. The mis- 
sionaiies translate, and through the Societies with which 
they are connected, they present the manuscript trans¬ 
lation to the Bible Society, with a request that the 
same may be printed. If the translation be approved 
of, this is readily done, or else a grant of money is 
made to get the translation printed, at the missionary 
station, under the eye of the translator himself. The 
Bible Society not only bears the expense of printing, 
but in many cases the expense of making the translations 
by different missionaries. 

It does not trust the excellence of the version, how¬ 
ever, to the judgment of the missionaries only, but has 
its own editorial committee and translating superintend¬ 
ent, who minutely inquire into, and report upon, every 
version. 

When a second edition of any Bible is called for, the 
first edition is thoroughly revised, and re-revised, and so 
each version improves by degrees. 

Such men as the late T. P. Platt, Esq., Mr. W. Green¬ 
field, and the Kev. Joseph Jowett, who were very learned 
in languages', assisted the Bible Society in this particular 
portion of its work. Many other gentlemen not officially 
connected with it have also rendered essential service in 
this department. 

The greatest literary talent will find its highest occupa¬ 
tion in the service of the Bible Society. Buchanan says, 
“ He who produces a new version of the Scriptures is a 


192 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


greater man than he who founds a kingdom.” A mis¬ 
sionary tutor, at Basle, used to give this excellent advice 
to his pupils: “ Whatever you are studying, even if it 
be the driest grammar, think that you are doing it for 
Christ, and you will find it easy and pleasant.” 

Professor Gaussen has given us a thought concerning 
these translations, which we will give you as briefly as 
possible, ere we bid farewell to the library:— 

“ If some friend, returning from the East Indies, bring 
you a letter from your father, written in Bengalee, and 
you do not understand it, you will get it translated ; you 
will not be indifferent to it, because it is in Bengalee. 
You might have translations of it made into several other 
languages that you do understand,—into English, French, 
Latin, German, Spanish, Dutch, till you had no more 
doubt of the original meaning of the letter, than if you 
had been a Hindoo, and could have read it in the original. 
Every separate translation casts light on what the original 
must have been.” 

In this place you have stood in the midst of all these 
lights upon the letter,—the letter from “ our Father who 
is in heaven.” It is now written in 150 languages, and 
in 177 versions,—the lights of the dark world. The 
letter can never now be hid, lost, or destroyed! 


We may now pass on to— 

THE COMMITTEE ROOMS; 

and, first, let us begin with that of the General committee. 

There is a long table in the middle of this room, 
covered with purple cloth,—the president’s chair being 
somewhat raised at one end of it; and down the sides 
are fixed benches, retiring row behind row, on a raised 
stage, till the room is filled up. 

In this room, a committee of thirty-six gentlemen meet 
together, on every alternate Monday, in every month, 



PLEASING INCIDENTS AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 1 93 

and oftener, if necessary, to transact the general business 
of the Society. Six of them must be foreigners, living 
in or near London, for it is a British and Foreign Bible 
Society. Fifteen must be members of the Church of 
England, and fifteen belong to other denominations of 
Christians. Such is the constitution of the Society—a 
noble illustration of the maxim, “ Union is strength.” 
These gentlemen are all laymen; but every Minister 
who becomes a member of the Society, by subscription, 
may attend and vote at all meetings of the committee. 

At the upper end of this room is the case of Bibles 
which was exhibited in the Crystal Palace, in Hyde 
Park, in 1851. All these Bibles of the Society, in the 
different versions, are open, with a small ticket appended 
to each, defining its language to unlearned eyes, and 
stating the number of Bibles which the Society has 
printed in that particular language. 

The attendant at the stall in the “Palace” says, that 
he found the existence of the Bible Society was compara¬ 
tively little known by those world-wide visiters. Many, 
when it was explained to them, said, “ This is a noble 
work, indeed!” and some among the poorest, possessing 
little of this world’s goods, exulted as they passed it, say¬ 
ing, u This is the glory of the whole Exhibition! and 
how it is hidden in a corner, when it ought to have had 
a place like the Koh-i-noor! ” 

We can quite understand how the friends of deceased 
translators were anxious to see the work of those they 
loved, and who had rendered such great service to the 
Society. One said, “ My husband, now in glory, trans¬ 
lated this.” Russian, Dutch, German, Norwegian, Italian, 
Welsh, and even Chinese visiters, looked on the Bibles 
with gladness, while two French ladies asked for papers 
to take home with them, saying, “ We are looking to 
England: France, Switzerland, all the nations are looking 
to England: the pope has put his foot into England, but 
we look to you and your Bible.” 


it 


194 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Ah! how high a position is this for England! Will 
not every one of you help her to send her Bible to the 
nations who are looking for it?—who are looking with 
wonder on her peace and prosperity founded on her 
Bible, and who expect to see her conquer with her Bible, 
and with nothing else, even the Pope of Rome! 

We may be allowed to suppose that this committee- 
room in the Bible House is a glorious room in the eyes 
of angels. If they could envy any among mankind, it 
would be those who sit at this table, and dispense the 
bread of life, sent down from heaven ! 

Memory can people this room with the forms of the 
good men who nave sat here in days gone by, but whose 
tongues are now silent in the grave,—who always thought 
of the days when they met here as their best days, as the 
happiest days of the week. Perhaps some of the youths 
who read this book may have the honour to sit here in 
days to come; and we really cannot wish them a higher 
honour, though their descent were from England’s oldest 
nobles! 

There are a few things in this committee-room to 
which we must call attention. Over the fire-place, and 
beneath the clock, you may observe Mr. Wyld’s Bible 
Society map, showing the moral state of the world by 
the aid of colours, and pointing out where Bibles have 
been circulated, how many copies, in what language, and 
other valuable statistics. There is the portrait of William 
Tyndal, whose grave, mild countenance seems to look 
down with complacency on those who are carrying out 
the work which he began: there also are the portraits 
of the former presidents, Lord Teignmouth and Lord 
Bexley, the old and tried friends of the Society, both 
gone also to their reward. A portrait of Wiclif ought 
oertainly to be found there also. 

We noticed on the table a large book, loosely bound, 
like a series of papers slightly tacked together, and, on 
opening it, found that the characters, instead of being as 


THE BIBLE FOR THE BLIND. 


195 


usual printed in black on a white ground, were un¬ 
coloured, but large, and raised in relief upon the paper, 
like the impression of a seal. On the under side of the 
paper, the letters seemed pressed in, as on a seal. Those 
who have ever seen these raised characters, will know at 
once that this was a book printed for the blind. It was 
the Gospel of John, in English, and in a new and very- 
simple character. 

This new and simple character is the invention of Mr. 
Moon, the master of the blind-school, at Brighton, him¬ 
self a blind man; and his system is said to be so great an 
improvement upon those previously invented, that blind 
persons, who have been for years endeavouring in vain 
to learn to read on other systems, have in ten days ac¬ 
complished their desire by the help of this. 

It is a very good work, and within the power even of 
children to purchase for any poor blind person they may 
know. An alphabet of these new letters, with instruc¬ 
tions by Mr. Moon, costs threepence, and a card con¬ 
taining the Lord’s Prayer in raised letters, fourpence: 
with them, persons who have learned to read before they 
became blind, may read with their fingers in a week. 

There are several other systems for teaching the blind 
to read, such as Gall’s, Alston’s, Howe’s, Frere’s, and 
Lucas’s, all possessing various excellencies, and having 
their separate advocates. The system invented by Lucas 
is the one used by “ The London Society for Teaching 
the Blind to Read.” An hour’s visit to the house of this 
Society, in the Avenue Road, Regent’s Park, where the 
blind may be seen reading, working, and even preparing 
their own books, would be an hour well spent. The 
Bible Society has aided this Institution, as well as other 
parties, by making grants to assist in embossing the Scrip¬ 
tures, and by purchasing copies to be given, or sold, to 
the indigent blind. 

There are supposed to be about 27,000 blind persons 
in Great Britain, of whom only about 2000 are under 


196 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


instruction in schools. What, then, becomes of the other 
25,000? They spend many weary, solitary hours, which 
might be relieved and cheered, if they were enabled to 
read, and ponder over (as only a blind person can) the 
word of God. It is computed that not more than 1350 
out of this 27,000 were born blind. Blind persons are 
very numerous in the neighbourhood of mines and manu¬ 
factories. We hope that our young readers will endea¬ 
vour in this way to become “ eyes to the blind.” 

A blind girl, in France, who gained her livelihood by 
manual labour, had obtained a copy of Mark’s Gospel, 
and also an alphabet for the blind. Being quick and 
intelligent, she was able in the course of a few days to 
decipher a whole page; but being herself desirous of 
making even faster progress, she took a penknife, and 
pared the skin from the tips of her fingers, thinking to 
render their touch more sensitive. Alas! this only 
rendered them in a few days more callous, and she found 
she could no longer read at all. In a moment of despair, 
she took up her treasured volume, and pressed it to her 
lips, to bid it a last farewell; when, lo! to her great joy, 
she discovered that she could thereby discern the letters, 
and from that time forth she has been reading with her 
lips. She has not only read the whole of Mark’s Gospel, 
but has actually committed it to memory. 

Let us now pass on to— 

THE SMALLER COMMITTEE ROOM. 

The General committee of the Bible Society divides 
itself into several sections, which are called by different 
names. 

The Editorial committee is composed of those who are 
able to judge of the translations. The Depository com¬ 
mittee is that which superintends the printing and bind¬ 
ing of the Bibles. The Agency committee is that which 
directs the operations of the agents of the Society. There 


T1IE BIBLE WAREHOUSE. 


197 


are also Finance and other sub-committees, conducted by 
men of business. 

Each member of the General committee is placed on 
that sub-committee for which his talents best fit him. It 
is Bible-work in which they all find themselves engaged, 
and it is conducted in a Bible-spirit. 

Around this sub-committee room are hung more por¬ 
traits of the Society’s faithful servants and friends, to 
some of whom it has been said, “ Enter ye into the joy 
of your Lord.” Here are those of the three first secre¬ 
taries, the Rev. John Owen, the Rev. Joseph Hughes, 
and the Rev. Dr. Steinkopff. Here are also those of its 
warm friends,—of Wilberforce, Granville Sharp, Admiral 
Gambier, the Bishop of Winchester, Charles of Bala, 
Broadley Wilson, Dr. Adam Clarke with his Buddhist 
priests, and of Oberlin, the pastor of the Ban de la Roche, 
of Mr. W. Greenfield, of Alexander, the late Emperor of 
Russia, and one of a Belgian colporteur,—a portrait 
esteemed worthy of a place, even here. 

But we must now leave what is called the “ Bible 
Society’s House,” and enter— 

THE BIBLE WAREHOUSE. 

Here the ever-varying stock of Bibles, in various lan¬ 
guages, is kept, and from hence they are sent, east and 
west, north and south, by land and by water, as they 
may be ordered by Auxiliaries, or as the benevolence of 
the committee may direct their distribution in this and 
other countries. One compartment consists of English 
Family Bibles *: they are most beautiful volumes, and 
their price is one sovereign each. 

From the largest, let us turn to the smallest. This 
Diamond Bible, with marginal references, bound in roan, 
and with gilt edges, is sold at the low price of Is. 3d.: 
the same book, handsomely bound in morocco, sells for 
Is. 11 d. These are the Bibles that weigh eight and nine 


198 


TIIE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


ounces, and this is their cost price ; for it is not the object 
of the Society to make any profit by the sale , but to extend 
the circulation as widely as possible. 

Ascending the stairs, we shall find ourselves still in a 
true place of business. As from the lower floor, so also 
from this, Bibles go out to all the world. See the wagon 
standing below to receive its precious load, to be taken 
to the docks, or perhaps to the railway stations, thence to 
give joy and spread light in our own country, or in some 
far-distant land. One feels something akin to reverence 
for that great iron crane. No other “ crane ” in all Lon¬ 
don lifts such true riches! 

Close to the trap-door in this floor lies a pile of Italian 
Bibles. One of the warehousemen said to us, “ Those 
don’t move now. Since the pope has come back to 
Borne, he will not let Bibles into Italy. That lot, too, 
are Spanish, and this, Malagassy: they are both very 
dead. English Bibles are lively, and move away as fast 
as they are ready.” “ We sent out 9000 of these 
Diamonds last month,” added our guide. 

Precious “ Pearls,” “ Bubies,” and “Diamonds” (for 
these are really the names of the different types in which 
the Bibles are printed), may the demand for them con¬ 
tinually increase! Blessed be God! Malagassy Bibles 
are dead no longer! After seventeen years of bitter 
persecution, on the part of the queen of that country, 
instigated by her prime minister, the God who rules over 
all has removed the blind and wicked man; and now 
we may hope that her son, her own son , whose heart 
the Lord has turned to Himself, will, with his prime 
minister,—the son of the very minister who persecuted 
and sent the missionaries out of the island,—recall them, 
and all the Christians, and open the ports to English 
commerce. 

And so the blood of the martyrs has been the seed of 
the church, as it always was. The suffering Christians 
have wandered about in forests, and dwelt in caves, have 


THE BIBLE WAREHOUSE. 190 

been obliged to bury their Bibles, have been poisoned, 
beaten, and slain, but, in spite of all, have multiplied; 
and it is said, there are 5000 now, in Madagascar, who 
love the Lord Jesus, out of a population of 4,000,000, 
and 500 native teachers ready to go back to them from 
the Mauritius. 

Speed, then, over the deep, Malagassy Bibles, in the 
hands of devoted English missionaries ! May one of your 
number win its way to the eye and the heart of the queen 
herself, leading her to weep like Saul of Tarsus over her 
work of persecution, and to apply for pardon to Him 
who alone has power to forgive sin! 

These are the Chinese Testaments. The words are not 
arranged across the page, but in columns from top to 
bottom. The paper is very thin, and printed only on 
one side, and the plain sides of two pages are folded 
together, like one of our uncut books. The paper for 
these is made, and the books are printed, in China. The 
cover also is Chinese, made of yellow paper, like silk, 
shot with gold dust. They are printed from wooden 
blocks, on which the characters are cut, after the manner 
of our woodcuts. Here, again, is a Chinese book, printed 
in this country, on English paper, on both sides of the 
sheet, and bound after the English fashion. From this 
circumstance it may become, perhaps, an attractive book 
to the Chinese themselves. 

More piles of books of all sizes, and another floor of 
them ! Swedish Bibles, Portuguese, French, Russian, 
Amharic, Tahitian, Malay, etc. “ This stack of English,” 
said our companion, “ came from Oxford this morning. 
The boxes which strew the warehouse contain 20,000 
Bibles and Testaments for Toronto. Yesterday we could 
scarcely get ready as many more for Ireland, chiefly for 
the use of the schools of the Hibernian Society.” 

There is a little room on the second floor, which be¬ 
longed to Mr. Cockle, known for thirty years at this 



200 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Bible House, as its faithful and unwearied depositary: 
when, during bis latter years, he was most busily engaged, 
he sought refuge from intrusion in this place. We have 
often found him here, in past time, but now we find him 
not. He, too, is “ gone up on high,” having devoted the 
greater part of his life to the service of the Bible Society. 
His little, empty, desolate room was the only sad corner 
of this rich storehouse. 

When the attendants were all gone, we stood alone for 
awhile among the great piles of Bibles,—alone with ail 
those written voices of God, — the voice that answered 
Job out of the whirlwind, that thundered in the deserts 
of Sinai, that spoke by the prophets, and in the sweet 
harp of David;—the voice that clothed its majesty in 
tenderness from the lips of the Redeemer of the world, 
and through evangelists and apostles is come down even 
to us—to our homes, to our hearts, and daily lives! 

Without ascending another floor, still more heavily 
laden with unbound Bibles, in various languages, you 
have noticed enough for the present at the Bible Society’s 
House and warehouse, and you are invited to accompany 
us to those interesting places, where the Holy Scriptures 
are “ printed,” and “ bound.” 


CHAPTER II. 


BIBLE-PRINTING AT 5HACKLEWELL.-ANCIENT PRINTING-OFFICE.— 

THE COMPOSITOR.-THE READER. 

THE PRINTING AND BINDING OF THE BIBLE. 

Those who live near Oxford and Cambridge, where a 
great part of the Bibles circulated by the British and 
Foreign Bible Society are printed, may visit the Bible 
presses in those celebrated universities: there are others 
who may find it more convenient to visit a third great 
Bible-printing establishment, that of the Queen’s Printers’ 
at Shackle well, in the suburbs of London. At this place 
a very large proportion of the Society’s Bibles, both in 
English and Welsh, are printed. 

Most young persons in the present day have seen a 
printing-office: but we will suppose that we are describ¬ 
ing one to children in the age of Wiclif, when there was 
not one to be seen. 

In the early ages of Printing, in the latter end of the 
sixteenth century, it was reckoned so far one of the 
liberal arts, that it was practised only by men of birth 
and education. The compositors, or persons who set up 
the types, had an ancient privilege, which proves this,— 
they were allowed to wear swords. In old pictures of a 
printing-office, you may see the master-printer, a grave 
and bearded personage, dressed in a fur-trimmed robe, 
apparently giving directions to the workmen. These 
consist of several compositors, comfortably seated on 
cushioned stools, their dirks and swords resting against 


202 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


a column by their side. Near them is an old man in 
spectacles, probably the reader; others are working at 
rude presses. 

We have been astonished in remarking the beauty and 
perfection of the type of some of those early Bibles, 
printed with so few aids from that principle of division 
of labour which is now so thoroughly understood; but 
then the impressions were not required in the numbers 
they are at present. It would be possible to print 4500 
Bibles a-day at this one establishment of Messrs. Eyre 
and Spottiswoode. Let us see what the compositors do 
towards it. 

They each work at a desk, or frame, and they work 
silently, in a room by themselves. It is not now thought 
necessary that they should be gentlemen by condition, 
or even ambitious men;—they must be those who are 
content to begin the work at its beginning, and to do it 
steadily and patiently. 

Their desk or frame contains two pairs of cases, one 
furnished with Roman letters, and the other with Italic. 
These cases are divided into nearly 100 partitions, some 
larger than the rest, for the letters that are sure to be 
most wanted. The letters 1, m, n, a, e, i, o, u, are far 
more frequently needed than j, k, q, x, z. 

These partitions are not labelled. A stranger to the 
art is surprised at the accuracy with which a compositor 
dips his fingers into the division containing the letter he 
requires; but it is a fact, that the youngest boy in a 
printing-office very soon learns the places of the letters, 
without any difficulty. Those letters which he will want 

most are placed in the 
divisions nearest to his 
hand; and, standing 
before the pair of cases 
Composing stick. which contain the Ro¬ 

man letters, he holds in his left hand what is called a 
composing-stick. 










THE COMPOSITOR. 


203 


This is a little iron or brass frame, one side of which 
is. movable, so that it may be adjusted to the required 
width of the page or column which the workman has to 
set up. It is made perfectly true and square, and will 
hold about twelve lines of such type as the present. The 
copy of the Scriptures, which the compositor we saw at 
work was imitating, lay on the least used part of the 
upper case. 

He seemed to take into his mind a line at a time, 
which it is easier to do from a printed book than if 
he had been reading very care¬ 
lessly-written manuscript, though 
even this can be done by a prac¬ 
tised eye. One by one, he places 
the letters for each word into his 
stick, his right hand going to the 
box, and his left securing each 
letter. He showed us that in every 
letter there was a nick which he 
always placed upwards the mo¬ 
ment he touched it, without look¬ 
ing at it. This nick is one of 
those pretty contrivances for sav- 
Compositor. jng labour, which experience has 

introduced into every art. 

His mind was now fully engaged with his work : he 
had to attend to the right spelling of the words, the right 
placing of the capital letters, the right positions for the 
stops, the placing of the words at right distances in his 
stick, without crowding, or giving them too much space; 
for, as the letters are not all of the same thickness, the 
spaces necessarily vary, though, on the whole, they are 
regular, and regularity in spacing distinguishes a good 
compositor. 

When he had filled his stick, he cleverly grasped all 
the type, and took it out, as if it had been one solid 
piece of metal. A practised compositor can do this, but 





204 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


a young apprentice has his patience tasked to the utmost, 
if, after toiling for an hour or two in picking up several 
hundred letters, he drops the whole while moving them, 
as he has then to mourn over the broken heap, which 
printers call pie , in the same way as children sometimes 
mourn over their fallen towers of bricks. 

The words are now lifted out into what is called a 
galley , and the galley is filled by the contents of succes¬ 
sive sticks. When as many lines are set up as will fill a 
page, they are bound tightly round with cord, and placed 
under the frame, and when as many pages are set up as 
will fill a sheet, they are arranged in proper order upon 
the imposing-stone. Each page is surrounded -with a piece 
of wood, called furniture, which provides an equal margin 
for every page, and the whole is wedged tightly together 
in a stout iron frame. This is termed a form, and being 
perfectly tight and compact, it can be carried about with 
as much ease as if it were composed of solid plates of 
metal, instead of being made up of forty or fifty thousand 
movable pieces. From this form a proof is taken for 
the reader: the first sheet printed is called a proof 

The first portion of the compositor’s work is now com¬ 
pleted; and if it has been well and carefully done, the 
reader will have very little trouble with it. It may pre¬ 
sent, and often does, a specimen of what industry and 
care can effect at once: there will not be a wrong letter 
in twenty lines,—a gross mistake, seldom. The printer’s 
reader looks over the proof while another person reads 
the copy aloud: he marks in the margin all the errors, 
and then returns the proof to the compositor, when he 
commences a second portion of labour and difficulty. If 
he has omitted a whole sentence, it will perhaps compel 
him to alter many pages, in order to insert it. 

In this new process, new blunders are often committed, 
and, when again revised by the reader, it is once more 
given back to the compositor, who has need of much 
patience and perseverance ; indeed, he is a very principal 


STEREOTYPING. 


205 


person in the production of a Bible or any other book; it 
will require a little patience, on your part, even to read 
the account of his labours. 

The proof being now tolerably perfect, the labour of a 
second reader is called in. It is his business to read “ for 
press,” that is, to search for the minutest errors, with the 
most industrious criticism. 

The form of type being at last corrected for press, the 
work of the compositor is at an end; and when the 
desired number of copies have been printed off, it is a 
part of his business to return the type to the cases, in 
order to furnish material for another sheet, and this opera¬ 
tion is called distributing the type. 

This is a beautiful process in the hands of an expert 
compositor, who shows the dexterity acquired by long 
practice. He will distribute four times as fast as he com¬ 
poses, and, if necessary, return to their places 50,000 let¬ 
ters a-day. To “know his p’s from his q’s” is considered 
a great difficulty for a beginner. 

We expected to find, that, as the Bible is a book in 
very large and constant demand, we should hear that it 
was generally printed from what are called stereotype- 
plates. These are made by taking a mould in plaster 
from each page of movable type, and then casting metal 
into the mould. This is altogether rather a delicate and 
difficult operation: the types must first be thoroughly 
cleaned, and then rubbed over with an oily composition, 
to prevent the adhesion of the plaster. If the least 
morsel does adhere, and it often does, the mould is 
spoiled. If, when removed, it is found perfect, the mould 
is baked, and this also is critical, for, if the oven be too 
hot, the moulds warp : then there is the casting, and the 
very best casting of metal into the mould cannot prevent 
occasional defects on the surface of the plate, which re¬ 
quires afterwards minute examination by a workman 
called a picker. He removes the small globules of metal 
which occasionally fill up such letters as the a and the e. 


206 THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

inserts here and there a new letter, by soldering, and 
removes with his graver any impurities which fill up the 
lines : this workman must possess a keen eye and steady 
hand. 

You may judge, from this description, that stereotyp¬ 
ing, or making a sheet of metal types all in one piece, is 
a process which requires much skill and experience. 
Still, as the Bible is constantly in request, we thought 
we should find it was mostly printed from stereotype- 
plates : but it is not. It is considered that stereotyping 
is the more expensive mode of printing of the two; 
because, with all the improvements that have now taken 
place, in hardening the metal of which the plate is com¬ 
posed, a set of stereotype-plates will only print 150,000 
copies of the Bible before they require to be renewed. 
On the other hand, from movable type, or type set up 
letter by letter in its form, it is possible, without renewal, 
to print a million copies. Here, however, there is re¬ 
vision . made of the types, after every edition of about 
5000 copies. 

Perhaps you would not imagine the value of the type 
required for a Bible: it astonished us. The value of the 

A D. 31. 1 2-1 Verily, eerily, 1 »»y ooto yon, p He th»t| type for a Diamond Bible, 

- heareth my word, and believeth on him that] r*1 # 11** • 

whlch thls ls a specimen, 
& 8 . 51 ., etc. fro™ d.«h onto i.f. I seve ral thousand pounds; 

therefore type, of course, is carefully preserved. 

We inquired whether Messrs. Eyre and Spottiswoode 
now printed any Bibles with the Apocrypha; because 
these gentlemen print for other parties besides the Bible 
Society. The reply was, that the copies printed with 
the Apocrypha decreased in number from year to year, 
and that not a thousand copies were printed in the space 
of two years. 


ANCIENT SCRIPTORIUM.—MODERN PRINTING. 207 


THE PRINTING ROOM. 



■■ I 

i jir 


SSaKt wish! •' :W % 

inBp> * 




-^w\ 






mm 

■ j 






The contrast between tiie Ancient Scriptorium and the Modem 
Printing- Machine. 






















































208 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


You would now wish to pass into the printing-room. 
Here we did not find a cylinder-press, as for the printing 
of the The Times newspaper, but twelve steam-presses, 
of considerable cost, and each one attended by a man 
and four boys. 

These presses are set in motion separately, but all by 
one steam-engine in an adjoining room : the ages of the 
boys employed to attend them are from fourteen to sixteen, 
and they are said to become, from habit, almost a part of 
the machinery. This is an interesting fact to the young, 
is it not ?—that the actual 'printing of the word of God 
(after the careful labours of the compositors and cor¬ 
rectors of the press) is accomplished by young persons! 
This used not to be the case, when hand-presses only 
were used, which, in this establishment, are still worked 
in another department. 

About 150 persons are now employed upon the print¬ 
ing of the Bible, at Shacklewell, instead of fifty, which 
used to be the number formerly,—showing the increased 
demand for the Holy Scriptures. 

But now let us begin to print. 

On the solid iron table at each end of the machine, lie 
the forms of type from which both sides of the sheet are 
printed. At each end of the machine is a pile of wet 
paper: this paper is wetted, quire by quire, before it 
comes to the machine-room. It is dipped two or three 
times, according to its thickness, in a trough of water, 
and then opened, and powerfully pressed, to diffuse the 
moisture ; for, if not thus moistened, the printers’ ink 
would lie upon the surface of the paper, and smear. 

By this pile of paper, at each side of the press, stand 
two boys; they are called laying-on boys; they feed the 
press with the paper, sheet by sheet, and two other boys, 
standing below them, take away each sheet as it is 
printed: some ten or twenty spoiled sheets are first 
passed over the types to remove any dirt or moisture. 

At the first movement of the great wheel, the inking- 


MACHINE-PRINTING. 


209 


apparatus at each end has been set in motion, and the 
steel cylinder attached to the reservoir of ink has begun 
to move. Printers’ ink is not fluid like writing ink, but is 
a stiff soft, paste. The ink-receivers are long, soft, elastic 
rollers, and are composed of a mixture of glue and 
treacle; they are renewed every week: we noticed a num¬ 
ber of fresh rollers hanging up against the wall. Two en¬ 
gineers are in constant attendance to keep the engine, 
the machines, and all other parts in daily repair. 

The first roller is called the doctor: it turns over on 
the surface of the ink-reservoir, and takes up a small 
quantity, which it communicates to an inking-table, over 
the surface of which three or four distributing rollers 
spread it equally. 

This even surface then communicates to two inking- 
rollers that which they shall impart to the forms which 
are to be printed: the ink is thus conveyed from roller 
to roller, that it may be all of an equal fineness or con¬ 
sistency, and to prevent blots, and faint places, techni¬ 
cally called monks and friars. 

All these beautiful operations are accomplished in the 
sixteenth part of a minute, by the travelling backward or 
forward of the table upon which the forms rest, while 
each roller revolves on a fixed axis. 

The moment the form, or mass of type has passed 
under the inking-rollers, one of the boys places the damp 
sheet upon a frame, when it and the form are conveyed 
together under a smooth iron flat-surface, which power¬ 
fully presses the damp sheet upon the face of the types. 
After being thus printed, it is conveyed back to its 
former place, and the sheet is then removed by another 
boy to a heap at the side. When the ink becomes firm 
or set, the other side of the sheet is printed by the same 
process. It is so contrived that each page shall be printed 
exactly at the back of another page. 

If there be no extraordinary hindrance or obstruction, 
one man and four boys can print 500 sheets in an hour? 


210 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


indeed, there is not much for them to do, except to 
attend upon and watch this wonderful, unconscious giant, 
the steam-press, in his operations. 

They feed him with paper, which he takes, adjusts, 
prints, and renders back, always supplying himself with 
fresh ink for the printing of every sheet; and all so 
quickly, that the boys can scarcely move fast enough to 
give and receive the work from his hand ; and when we 
think what is the work he is doing at Shacklewell, how 
glorious is the outlay of his strength ! 

If these twelve presses were all at full work (thirteen 
sheets being necessary to the completion of a Bible), 450 
of these written voices of God might go forth from this 
room in one hour,—4500 might be issued in a day. 
Oh! that the British and Foreign Bible Society might 
ever have occasion to order so many! 

Twenty-seven thousand might be issued in a week, 
nearly one million and a half in a year, from this one 
source of supply alone ! and it must be remembered, 
that this is but one of the establishments at work for 
the British and Foreign Bible Society. It can employ 
the giant, when needful, in all quarters of the world 
at once; for, by the wonderful inventions and improve¬ 
ments of this nineteenth century, the books can be pro¬ 
duced at the cheapest possible rate, and circulated with 
the greatest possible speed. 

In the process of placing the pages of type for the 
formation of the sheet, a small mark is inserted at gra¬ 
duated intervals on each sheet, so that when the book is 
folded and gathered together, a diagonal line is formed by 
these little printed marks across the back, thus enabling 
the binder’s collator to detect at a glance a missing or a 
misplaced sheet. 

After the sheets are printed, they must be dried, which 
is done by hanging them in rooms and passages fitted 
with hot-air pipes; and they are lifted with an instru¬ 
ment called a printer s peel. 


HANDS REQUIRED TO PRINT A BIBLE. 211 

They are then pressed in a hydraulic press, and after¬ 
wards laid down in piles of about 1000 of each signature, 
on boards forming a square, in alphabetical order, and 
then gathered, as it is called, by a boy, who stands in 
the middle of a square space, and collects the sheets in 
succession, according to the letter which is printed at the 
bottom of the page, called a signature, for the guidance 
of the binder. 

Every sheet is then collated, to see that the whole are 
in proper alphabetical order, that no sheet is wanting, 
or one too many: when collated, the sheets are folded, 
separated into books, again pressed, and then tied up to 
go to the Bible Society’s warehouse. 


The number of hands the Bible passes through in the 
course of printing is as follows:*— 


Compositor, 

Four readers, 

Reviser for press, 

Corrector, 

One pressman and four boys, 
Looker-over, 

Hanger-up, 


Cold-presser, 

Gatherer, 

Collator, 

Folder, 

Booker, 

Presser, 

Tier-up, 


—twenty-one persons in all; not to speak of— 


Type-founders, 

Iron-founders, 

Wholesale-stationers, 

Composition-roller-makers, 


Printers’-j oiners, 
Printing-ink-makers, 
Paper-makers, and 
Engineers, 


who must each, with the whole series of workmen in 
their several factories, have combined to the production 
of the Book. There are about fourteen processes, in the 
making of the printing-paper alone;—and yet we have 
to bind it. 


Furnished by Mr. Leighton. 


212 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


THE BINDING OF THE BIBLE. 

it is a sort of principle among bookbinders, that the 
subject of a book shall be known by its cover. This, 
however, refers to ornament, and the Bible Society do 
not provide ornamented Bibles; their great aim is ex¬ 
treme cheapness combined with good and strong work; 
and they take every means to secure this. They have all 
their books bound by contract. We paid an interesting 
visit to the premises of the present contractor (Mr. Wat¬ 
kins), and found ourselves in a large, airy, and well- 
warmed room, furnished with long tables, at which sat 
numbers of neat, healthy, and happy-looking girls, their 
ages from twelve to eighteen, not sitting crowded to¬ 
gether, but each having room for her work—her pleasant 
work. 

As we looked at them and inspected their proceedings 
in detail, that we might describe them to you, we 
thought how much rather we would choose to work for 
our living as Bible-binders, than as milliners— 

Fashion’s poor, pale slaves, 

Working to their graves 

—with so few hours’ rest allowed in the twenty-four. 

At Mr. Watkins’s establishment, the girls work ten 
hours a-day, and they are paid according to the quantity 
of the work they get through, and this tends to make 
them industrious. They have many checks over their 
performance, and the contractor is under an engagement 
to replace, at his own cost, any books found to be badly 
bound ; therefore, for bad folding and stitching they are 
fined: that they are, however, generally careful, is proved 
by the fact, that the fines do not amount to five pounds 
a-year among 200 workpeople. 

When you think that the Bible is printed in large 
sheets, sometimes sixty-four pages in a sheet, you will, of 


FOLDING AND SEWING. 


213 


course, perceive that these large sheets will need folding, 
even if the printer fold them once, for the convenience 
of tying up. 

They are received at the binder’s by a warehouseman, 
who gives them out to each folder, in as many successive 
sheets as will form the whole Bible. 

Each folder sits by a table on which she spreads out 
the sheets. In her right hand she holds a small ivory or 
bone folding-knife, with which she flattens the foldings 
of the sheet: this folding seemed to us very quickly 
done, but it is so only from practice, for it requires accu¬ 
racy, as the first and last lines of the print must range 
evenly with the opposite page. In taking up the sheet 
she looks merely at what is called the signature ,—a letter 
standing by itself at the bottom of the page, which you 
perhaps have never noticed. It is placed there chiefly as 
a direction to the binder. 

She takes up first letter A, folds the sheet down the 
middle, and then across, and also once more down the 
middle; she then takes up the next sheet, letter B. 
folds it in the same manner, and lays it upon letter A; 
and proceeds in the same way with all the letters of the 
alphabet, till she begins it again; only to the second A 
is attached a small a, to the second B, a small b, and so 
on: you can find these printers’ marks, if you look 
through the Bible. 

After these folded sheets have been taken from the 
rolling-press ibr binding, the collator takes the whole 
in his hand to see that they are laid in proper order, 
that no sheet is wanting, and that the folding is correct, 
and this is very expertly done: the sheets are held at 
one corner, and allowed to spring back, one after another, 
leaving, to the experienced eye, just time enough to catch 
the signature letters : this collation takes place in a sepa¬ 
rate room, and any error is at once adjusted. 

And now the book is to be sewn. A girl, sitting side¬ 
ways against the table on which the sheets are laid, first 


214 THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

takes up that marked A, and places the back of it against 
three strings or tapes (or, if it be a large book, against 
four tapes), fastened in a sewing- 
press, then passing a needle, filled 
with strong thread, through the 
sheet, from the inside, she brings it 
out at the back, and carries it over 
one of the tapes, pushing the 
needle through the paper again 
from the outside,—thus causing 
the thread to embrace the tape. 

Her left arm, as you see in tne 
vignette, passes round the press, 
and returns the needle from one 
side to the other; thus sheet by 
Sewing. sheet is fastened to the tapes. 

This process is conducted with wonderful quickness: 
the polished needle flies in and out and over the tapes, 
in far less time than it takes to tell about it, for practice 
makes perfect, and this is the sewer’s whole employ from 
day to day, and from week to week; and her wages 
depend not on the number of hours she sits at her press, 
but on the number of books she sews. 

One little girl we accidentally selected, who was a 
learner, and only thirteen years of age, told us she had 
been in the establishment nearly three months: she said 
she had earned Is. 3d. the day before ; but we found she 
was considered, by the forewoman, a naturally quick as 
well as a steady child. The young people get accustomed 
by degrees to the close attention that the work requires, 
and that is necessary to ensure good wages. 

After the Bibles are sewn, they are again taken to the 
re-collating-room to be examined. Every sheet is looked 
at, to see if it may have been torn by accident, carelessly, 
or improperly stitched: this examination requires, also, 
that the mind be entirely fixed on its occupation, for the 
least distraction may cause an error to be overlooked. 









215 


CUTTING, GILDING, AND POLISHING. 

Presuming that no such faults have been discovered, the 
books are carried into another building, occupied solely 
by men. Here they are first placed in piles, a sheet of 
iron or zinc between each book, in a hydraulic-press, 
and pressed with immense force. In this press they are 
left some time; and, when taken from it, are passed into 
the cutting-room. There a cutting-press, with a large, 
sharp knife, is employed. The books are very carefully 
placed under the knife, the size to which they are to be 
cut being regulated by a scale at the side of the machine, 
and then, by means of a lever, the whole quantity is cut 
at one stroke of the knife. 

The gilder next receives the books, and screws them 
up in a powerful horizontal press; the edges are then 
scraped, washed with a composition of red chalk and 
water; and while this is drying, the leaf-gold is blown 
out from the book in which it is sold by the goldbeater, 
on to a cushion covered with leather, where it is placed 
smoothly, by the aid of a knife. On the work-bench is 
a cup containing white of egg, beaten up with water, a 
little of which is laid by a camels’-hair pencil on the 
still damp surface of chalk and water. The gold is then 
taken up, piece after piece, and laid on the book’s edge: 
this is done to all the three edges in succession, and to 
many books together, all squeezed tightly in the press, to 
produce a solid and even surface. 

After a few minutes, the gold has become sufficiently 
dry and set, for polishing, by a process which would 
seem adapted to rub off every atom of gold, but it does 
not do so. 

The workman holds in his hand a long-handled bur¬ 
nisher, at the lower end of which is fixed a very smooth, 
straight-edged piece of agate; this he places on the gilt 
surface, and, with his left elbow resting on the work¬ 
bench, and the handle of the burnisher resting on his 
right shoulder, he rubs the gold with great force, not 
along the edge, but across it: no gold is rubbed off, but 


216 THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

the whole is highly polished by this treatment; and when 
the gilding is complete, paper is wrapped round the edges 
to prevent their being soiled while the book is finishing. 

When Bibles are required with sprinkled edges, the 
books are tied up in quantities between two boards: 
they are then placed edges upwards, and a man holding 
a brush dipped in ochre and water, or umber and water, 
and sometimes in Venetian red, high in the air over the 
books, with one hand strikes the brush with a stick held 
in the other, and thus sprinkles a fine shower of the co¬ 
louring matter over the edges; this is often repeated with 
another colour; and the cheap, buff-coloured sheep covers 
of Testaments for schools, are sprinkled in the same way. 

The marbled edges of books are produced by sprink¬ 
ling pigments of several colours upon a fluid preparation, 
contained in a large trough, where they float, the colours 
being mixed with oil; and the edges of the books, being 
alternately placed for a moment upon this surface, imbibe 
the colours. 

After the edges have been thus prepared, the books are 
then each singly hammered, to 
give a rounded form to the 
back, and a concave surface to 
the front: the back, being pre¬ 
viously covered with glue, re¬ 
tains the shape thus given to it. 

It is then placed between 
two boards, and again in a press, 
with the back uppermost, and 
the back once more hammered, 
so that it shall flatly incline 
over the boards; and after va¬ 
rious minor processes, the book 
which seemed to lie passive in 
the hands of the workmen, to 
be moulded round or square by turns, as they pleased, 
emerges from all its battering, into the care of its “ case- 



Rounding. 


HANDS REQUIRED TO BIND A BIBLE. 217 

maker,” who will dress it in sheep, calf, or morocco, 
according to the price at which it must be sold. The 
leather, of whatever kind, being cut half an inch larger 
than the book, all round, is pared at the edges with a 
keen knife: this leather is partly stamped, before it is 
attached to the book, which attachment is an affair of 
very great nicety, as overlapping the edges, and turn¬ 
ing in the corners, require the greatest exactness, other¬ 
wise the book would be spoiled. 

The little head-band of bright silk or calico, crimson 
or purple, is now applied. 

The granulated appearance of the morocco bindings 
is produced by a curious mode of rubbing the leather 
against itself. If the book is to be stamped or embossed, 
the process is aided by heat, and performed by a machine. 

We cannot enter into any further detail of the “ decora¬ 
tion,” as it is called, of the cover of the Bible. From 
time to time, new patterns and devices are presented for 
this purpose; and, after all this inspection, it is a greater 
wonder to us than ever, that a book, which requires the 
aid of— 

14 persons to make its paper, 

21 persons to print it correctly, 

19 persons to bind it neatly, 

54 persons in all, 

(not to speak of those of other trades, who must have 
combined to its production,) can be sold by the Bible 
Society for one shilling ! 

The number of hands which a Bible with gilt edges, 
bound in roan, passes through, in process of binding, is 
as follows: *— 

Binder’s warehouseman, First collator, 

Folder, Sewer, 

Roller, Second collator, 


Furnished by Mr. Watkins. 


218 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Paperer, Forwarder, 

Presser, Letterer, 

Cutter, Varnisher, 

Examiner of cutting, General examiner of binding, 
Gilder, Wrapper in paper covers, and 

Cutter out of cover, Packer. 

Embosser, 

When the books are sent home to the Bible House, 
which they are to the number (on an average) of nearly 
three thousand daily, another examination takes place, 
and frequently defective copies are returned to the binder 
to be made good. 

Any person discovering an error in a Bible printed for 
the British and Foreign Bible Society, confers a benefit 
on them by returning it to the Bible House, as it makes 
all the parties employed more careful. 

No Bibles are voted by the British and Foreign Bible 
Society to other societies, or for any purpose whatever, 
in sheets. Every Bible it sends forth is bound: this is to 
prevent the possibility of the Book afterwards being 
bound up with any of the apocryphal books, or with any 
note or preface whatsoever. The Society circulates the 
word of God alone, “ without note or comment.” 

And, now, farewell to the externals of the sacred Book. 
We hope it has pleased you to examine even these, in 
contrast to the age of ancient manuscript. We pass on 
to the history of the Bible in the nineteenth century. 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


PART III. 


THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY’S 
RISE, PROGRESS, 


AND PRESENT OPERATIONS. 






































CHAPTER I. 


REV. T. CHARLES.-PARTICULARS OF HIS YOUTH.-HIS MISSIONARY 

SPIRIT.-HIS USEFULNESS TO THE YOUNG.-SCARCITY OF THE 

SCRIPTURES IN WALES.-CIRCULATING SCHOOLS. — COMMITTING 

THE BIBLE TO MEMORY.-GROWN-UP SCHOLARS.-MEETING OF 

TWENTY SCHOOLS.-THE LITTLE GIRL WHO HAD NO BIBLE.-THE 

TWELVE PEASANTS.—MR. CHARLES’S VISIT TO LONDON.—TRACT 
COMMITTEE.-WANTS OF WALES, AND OF THE WORLD.—FORMA¬ 
TION OF THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY.-COLLEC¬ 
TIONS IN WALES.—INFLUENTIAL FRIENDS AND SUPPORTERS.- 

OBJECTS AND CONSTITUTION OF THE SOCIETY, FORMED ALIKE FOR 
HOME AND THE WORLD.-ITS PRINCIPLE.-UNION AND CO-OPERA¬ 
TION OF ALL PARTIES.-REV. J. OWEN.-REV. J. HUGHES. 

We are coming at last to the sunshiny portion of the 
Story of the Book,—having now nothing but bright and 
happy work before us. We have been obliged to go and 
weep over the graves of the ancient martyrs and trans¬ 
lators, that we might know the price which had been 
paid for our precious Bible. We hope that many young 
persons will henceforth take the treasure into their hands, 
with loving, reverent, and grateful hearts; and perhaps 
with more gladness than they ever felt before, and pass 
on to the true and wonderful tale of the last fifty years. 

If we were to tell you one-tenth of what there is to be 
told, of the times in which this Book has been allowed 
and enabled to travel freely round the world, our book 
would be too large for you to buy, or read. 

You will wish to know, first, how the British and 
Foreign Bible Society arose. It has been said, verv 


222 THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

truly, that it “ grew out of a want ,”—the want of the 
Bible in Wales . 

You will best under¬ 
stand this want, if we 
recount to you some 
incidents in the life 
of the Rev. Thomas 
Charles. He has been 
called the “ Apostolic 
Charles of Bala” (a 
town in Merioneth¬ 
shire), and was a man 
of a truly missionary 
spirit. At the begin¬ 
ning of this century, 
he was about fifty years 
of age, and had been 
twenty years labour¬ 
ing in Wales, “ wan- 
chAE iiEs. dering up and down,” 

as he says, “ that cold and barren country, to preach the 
everlasting gospel.” 

At the age of eighteen, being deeply impressed with 
the value of his own soul, and of the glorious plan of 
salvation set forth in the gospel, he became anxious also 
for the salvation of others. His first efforts to this end 
began at home, in his father’s family, and being naturally 
of a mild temper and disposition, he was beloved by all 
his relations: notwithstanding his youth, and, as he says, 
his little knowledge, he was enabled to maintain much 
influence for good, and by his means family-worship was 
soon established in his father’s house. 

His education commenced at Caermarthen, and was con¬ 
tinued at Oxford, where he was supported by remarkable 
supplies of God’s providence, afforded as he needed them; 
speaking of which, he remarks, “ There are no difficulties 
with God: difficulties exist wholly in our unbelieving 
hearts.” 






MR. CHARLES. 


223 


In the year 1777, he spent his vacation with the Kev. 
John Newton, of Olney, the friend of the poet Cowper, 
and he seems greatly to have valued the visit, during 
which he also heard Mr. Romaine preach. Intercourse 
with men such as these, in early life, is a great privilege, 
and often fixes the character and pursuits of young 
persons. 

If these two good men could have foreseen in Mr. 
Charles, one of the fathers and founders of the noblest 
Society in the world, they would still more have rejoiced 
to take him by the hand, and speed him on his way. 
His character was evidently remarkable for ingenuous¬ 
ness and humility,—the sweet fruits of true piety. He 
was ordained deacon at the age of twenty-three, at Ox¬ 
ford; and he says, “ I felt, on that day, an earnest desire 
that God would enable me to devote myself wholly to 
his service, for the rest of my days on earth.” 

We cannot go into all the details of Mr. Charles’s 
history. He had an excellent wife, for whom he waited 
several years. His income from his curacy, at one time, 
was not more than forty pounds a year, but this did not 
prevent his doing much good among his parishioners; 
for although he had not silver and gold to give, he could 
offer medicine for the healing of the soul, and hold forth 
the promise of eternal life in Christ Jesus. 

His labours were especially useful to children and 
young people. Finding many of them at Bala and the 
neighbourhood very ignorant, he invited them to his 
house, where he gave them religious instruction, and 
catechised them, on the Sabbath evenings. His preach¬ 
ing, being of a deeply-impressive and faithful character, 
gave offence to many who were not willing to live accor¬ 
ding to its standard. His services were rejected, to his 
great grief, by three churches in the establishment—a 
circumstance which will show the state of religion at that 
time in North Wales. He was therefore, though a church¬ 
man, as he says, from education and principle, compelled 


224 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


to remain unemployed, and feel himself an “ unprofitable 
servant,” or else to itinerate, which means, to preach from 
place to place; and, in choosing the latter course, he espe¬ 
cially devoted himself to the spiritual good of children 
and young people. 

The fruits of his labours, and the results of his long and 
toilsome journeys, are still visible in Wales, in the 
superior knowledge of the Scriptures possessed by many 
whom he caused to be taught as children. Many thou¬ 
sands at the great day of account will probably acknow¬ 
ledge him as the instrument of their salvation, during the 
thirty years of his earnest ministry. 

In many parts of the country the sound of the gospel 
had scarcely been heard for centuries, and the people 
were as ignorant as those in a heathen land. The Welsh 
Bible, though printed long previously by private effort, 
and repeatedly afterwards by the Society for Promoting 
Christian Knowledge, instituted in 1698, was scarcely to 
be found in any poor cottage in Wales, in the year 1783. 
In many parishes, not ten persons could read. 

Where such darkness existed, of course the works of 
darkness would be carried on, and the people were to a 
great extent immoral and ungodly. Mr. Charles soon 
perceived, that, in order to do any permanent good, the 
children must be regularly instructed: this, therefore, he 
undertook as his special work. 

There had been established a few years before, by the 
liberality of a lady, named Mrs. Bevan (who left ten 
thousand pounds in her will for the purpose), what were 
called “ circulating schools,” movable from one place to 
another, at the end of nine or twelve months. These 
schools are still to be found in different parts of Wales; 
but at the period we refer to, they had ceased, owing to 
some legal dispute about the property which supported 
them. 

Mr. Charles wished to re-establish such schools, to pro¬ 
cure teachers, and to raise money to support them. Some 


PROGRESS OF EDUCATION IN WALES. 225 


of the first teachers he taught himself. It was said by 
the Duke of Wellington, “ If you want anything done 
thoroughly, you must do it yourself.” Mr. Charles raised 
the money by the help of benevolent English friends; and 
he began with one teacher,—a small beginning for the 
great and glorious results which followed; for there is now 
no district of Wales without the means of learning to read 
the word of God, either in week-day or Sunday schools. 

Mr. Charles wished chiefly to teach those children to 
read the Bible in their own language; and as the work 
advanced, the principles and morals of the people, where 
the schools had been instituted, visibly improved: soon 
the whole country was filled with schools of one kind or 
another, and then a general concern for eternal things 
began to appear in many large districts. 

He paid every teacher 12/. a year. Three quarters of 
a year were found sufficient to teach the children to read 
the Bible well, in Welsh ; and then Mr. Charles visited 
the schools by turns, and catechised publicly,—a plan 
suited to a wild and mountainous district. 

After a while, the parents also began to attend the 
schools, and the teachers did not refuse to accept grown¬ 
up scholars. Many an old person was obliged to buy 
spectacles for the sake of learning to read the word of 
God, for neither age nor dimness of sight deterred them. 
The young often spent part of the night in learning 
chapters, or searching the Scriptures on points given them 
to seek out and prove. Boys and girls from eight to 
sixteen learned whole books of the Bible; parents and 
children recited together; and one little girl is mentioned, 
who, at five years old, could repeat a hundred chapters, 
and went on learning another every week. 

This will remind you of the children of the Yaudois, 
before mentioned, whose parents taught them so to lay 
up the word of God in their hearts, that it could not be 
taken away from them. They, too, lived among moun¬ 
tains and rocks, as these Welsh children did; but the 

16 


2 26 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


poor, persecuted Yaudois could never enjoy meetings such 
as were sometimes held in North Wales, where several 
schools met, that they might be publicly catechised to¬ 
gether. They were frequently held when the Sabbath 
was fine, on which occasions the children, accompanied 
by their teachers, walked perhaps ten miles, in the quiet, 
early morning, to the appointed place, from many a cot¬ 
tage hidden among the hills. Twenty schools would thus 
be assembled— 

“ In the still valley, with the mountains round”; 
and to this vast concourse of persons Mr. Charles preached, 
after the examination had been concluded. 

We are told, that, in the year 1802, as he was walking 
in the streets of Bala, he met with a child who attended 
his ministry. He inquired if she could repeat the text 
from which he had preached on the previous Sunday: 
she was silent, and the inquiry was repeated. At length 
she answered, “The weather has been so bad that I could 
not get to read the Bible.” The reason of this was soon 
ascertained : there was no copy to which she could gain 
access, either at her own home, or among her friends; 
and she was accustomed to walk seven miles over the 
hills, every week, to a place where she could obtain a 
Welsh Bible, for the purpose of reading the chapter from 
which the minister took his text. During that week, the 
cold and stormy weather, it seems, had hindered her jour¬ 
ney. Are we, who have Bibles of our own, always so 
anxious to consult them after we have listened to a sermon? 

Another incident, proving the want of the Scriptures 
in Wales, may be mentioned. 

Twelve Welsh peasants subscribed together to purchase 
a copy of the Bible, which, like the schools, was to cir¬ 
culate among the hills. Each family was to keep it a 
month, and then pass it forward. On its arrival among 
them, an old man, who had been the last subscriber, find¬ 
ing his name at the end of the list, wept bitterly, say¬ 
ing, “Alas! it will be twelve months before it comes to 


ORIGIN OP THE BIBLE SOCIETY. 227 

me, and I dare say I shall be gone before that time into 
another world! ” 

Mr. Charles was deeply grieved that there were so few 
Bibles in Wales,—so few in comparison with the wants 
of the people. The Society for Promoting Christian 
Knowledge had, in addition to former supplies, printed 
10,000 Bibles, and in the year 1799 this edition was 
distributed. They were no sooner published than sold. 
Not a single copy was left, and still not a fourth part of 
the country was supplied. The Society above named 
hesitated about printing another edition; and, notwith¬ 
standing the earnest entreaties of the Rev. T. Jones, of 
Creaton (who, like Mr. Charles, felt for his countrymen), 
seconded by the Bishop of Peterborough and others, all 
hopes of receiving further supplies from that quarter were 
abandoned. Hence it became necessary to devise some 
other means to provide Bibles for Wales. “ The joy of 
those who received the Bibles amounted to exultation, 
while the grief of such as could not obtain a copy fell 
little short of anguish.” * 

In December, 1802, Mr. Charles visited London, in¬ 
tending to interest his friends in certain plans for securing 
his object. The subject of the Bibles was much on his 
mind; and, one morning, lying awake and thinking, the 
idea of having a society for distributing the Bible alone, 
on a plan similar to that of the Religious Tract Society, 
established in London, occurred to him. He was so 
pleased with it, that he instantly arose, and went out to 
consult with friends, with a view to carry out this idea. 

The first friend he met with was Mr. Tarn, who was 
one of the committee of the Tract Society ; and at the 
next meeting Mr. Charles was introduced, and represented, 
with all the ardour of his character, the dearth of Bibles 
in his native Principality, and the longing desire of the 
Welsh to have them. At the moment when this appeal 

* Owen’s 41 History of the Bible Society,” p. 11. 


228 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


was made for Bibles for the Principality, the Rev. Joseph 
Hughes, who was at that time one of the secretaries of 
the Tract Society, gave expression to these memorable 
words: “ Surely a society might be formed for the purpose; 
and if for Wales , why not also for the empire and the 
world?” In this thought, all present shared and rejoiced. 
The meeting instructed its secretary to follow up the sug¬ 
gestion, and prepared a letter, inviting Christians of every 
name to unite to form a Society to send the word of God, 
without note or comment, all over the world. 

On the 7th of March, 1804, the British and Foreign 
Bible Society was actually established, at a meeting held 
in a room at the London Tavern, in Bishopsgate-street, 
about 300 persons being present. On that vejy spot, at 

the commencement of 
its Jubilee Year, its 
friends met once more, 
but there was only one 
out of this number (the 
venerable Dr. Stein- 
kopff) spared to join 
hands with the present 
supporters of the old 
and tried Society,—a 
Society which has fur¬ 
nished a platform on 
which all Christians 
could so harmoniously 
unite in one labour of 
love, and which has 
gone on, notwithstand- 
steinkopff. ing difficulties and ob- 

jections, doing its own work, conquering and to conquer, 
in every region to which its operations have been ex¬ 
tended. 

In his “ History of the Bible Society,” the Rev. John 
Owen, a clergyman of the Church of England, who early 




THE FIRST MEETING.—ITS HAPPY EFFECT. 229 

became one of its secretaries, has given a touching ac¬ 
count of the effect of this first meeting on his own mind. 
He had received during the previous summer, from Mr. 
Hughes, two copies of his essay, entitled, “ The Excel¬ 
lence of the Holy Scriptures: an Argument for their 
more General Dispersion,” with a request that he would 
accept one for his own use, and present the other to the 
Bishop of London. He did present the one copy as re¬ 
quested, but “took little pains either to understand or 
recommend the other”; in fact, he scarcely thought 
of it again, until he received a circular letter inviting 
him to attend the meeting for the formation of the 
Society ; and then, perceiving the name of his intimate 
and valued friend, Granville Sharp, Esq., at the head of 
the signatures, he was induced to attend, though almost 
against his will. On entering the room, he had scarcely 
taken the station assigned to him by the committee, before 
he perceived, as he says, to his great astonishment, that 
three of this committee, from their dress, and from their 
wearing their hats, were Quakers. 

Now, Mr. Owen at that time shared deeply in the 
popular prejudice and belief, that the Quakers, or, more 
properly, members of “ The Society of Friends,” did not 
read or love the Bible ; and noble is his confession, that 
his after-experience of their conduct in the British and 
Foreign Bible Society repeatedly made him ashamed of 
this prejudice. 

The business of the day was opened by Robert Cowie, 
Esq.; William Alers Hankey, Esq., followed, and was 
succeeded by Samuel Mills, Esq., and the Rev. J. Hughes. 
Each spoke of the want of the Holy Scriptures through¬ 
out the world, and urged the necessity of fresh means of 
supply, in a strain of good sense and temperate zeal. 

Mr. Owen sat and listened, and felt that he must give 
assent, though with half reluctance; for the thought of 
uniting with all denominations of dissenters, for any 
purpose on earth, was exceedingly distasteful to him; 


230 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


but when good Dr. Steinkopff, a German Lutheran clergy¬ 
man, arose, the representation he gave of the scarcity of 
the Scriptures, which he had himself observed in foreign 
parts, the unaffected simplicity and tender pathos of his 
appeal for his own countrymen, subdued at once both 
the mind and heart of Mr. Owen; and, “by an impulse 
which he had neither the inclination nor the power to 
disobey,” he rose and expressed his conviction that such 
a society was needed, and that its establishment should 
not be delayed. 

There had been hitherto no point where Christians, for 
ages kept asunder through different systems of discipline 
in their communities, and regarding each other too often 
with a sort of pious horror, could meet, to make one 
united and loving effort against the evil which is in the 
world; but Mr. Owen now felt, that the British and 
Foreign Bible Society would afford this meeting-point; 
for that, whatever might be the differences of opinion 
and discipline, all who became its members would declare 
that they belonged to the most ancient and venerable 
Church of the Book ; and, in the desire to give it to all 
nations, “ the multitude of them that believed were of 
one heart and of one soul.” 

In a letter from Mr. Tarn to Mr. Charles, describing 
this first meeting, and telling him that 700/. had been 
subscribed upon the spot, he says, “The Rev. John Owen 
did the cause great service. He spoke, of his own accord, 
after the other friends, and, in a most powerful, argu¬ 
mentative, and scriptural manner, showed that the Society 
was founded on the sure word and promises of God.” 

Mr. Charles was not present at the formation of the 
Society. He was at home among his schools and his 
people; but he rejoiced to hear of it, and took no honour 
to himself. He exerted all his influence to obtain sub¬ 
scriptions for the support of the new Society, and he and 
his Welsh friends prayed much for it; so that the contri¬ 
butions of the Principality, in the first year, amounted to 


MR. OWEN.—MR. PRATT. 


23 ] 


nearly 1900Z., “contributed chiefly,” says Mr. Owen, “by 
the plain and lower orders of people.” Dr. Warren, the 
bishop of Bangor, and Dr. Burgess, the bishop of St. 
David’s, were, however, amongst the earliest supporters 
of the Society in Wales. 

Around this point of union soon rallied many of the 
noble and the good, who were desirous to come back to 
the two grand, simple principles of union which prevailed 
in the early church, to “ hold fast the faithful word,” and 
to “ love one another .” 

Mr. Owen topk great care to make Bishop Porteus, the 
bishop of London, with whom he was on intimate terms, 
regularly acquainted with the proceedings of the com¬ 
mittee; and the bishop, who felt a lively interest in their 
affairs, recommended Lord Teignmouth to become their 
president. . Wilberforce, too, the never-to-be-forgotten 
friend of the slave, at their second general meeting, en¬ 
couraged the Society to “ proceed in its work with an 
ardour and a discretion becoming its object and its end.” 

We can never sufficiently admire the overruling power 
and grace of God, who had provided instruments so well 
fitted to the great work of conducting the arrangements 
of this Society, as Mr. Owen and Mr. Hughes, its first 
secretaries. These good men are now beyond the award 
of human praise; therefore we may look back upon the 
points of character which constituted their fitness. For 
six weeks after their memorable meeting of the 7th of 
March, 1804, the Rev. Josiah Pratt (who likewise filled 
the office of secretary to the Church Missionary Society 
for twenty-one years) had kindly consented to fill the 
office of clerical secretary, till a suitable person could be 
found to undertake it. During this short period, he 
effected the re-organisation of the committee, which was 
to consist of thirty-six members of all denominations of 
Christians, and concerted a plan which should define their 
respective proportions. 


232 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Having established this point, Mr. Pratt begged to pre¬ 
sent to the committee the Rev. John Owen, in his own 
stead,—the duties of his other secretaryship being found, 
by himself, more than sufficient; and though he thus 
voluntarily ceased to be connected officially with the 
concerns of the Bible Society, he continued its firm friend 
and advocate to the close of his life. 

There is, we are sorry to say, no biography of Mr. 
Owen, which we can condense for your benefit; but his 
name will live for ever on the records of the Bible Society. 
For the last eighteen years of his life, he devoted him¬ 
self almost entirely to its interests, “ with talents that en¬ 
livened every topic, and a temper that conciliated every 
heart.” From the time that, under the influence of the 
Spirit of God, at its first meeting, he felt the necessity 
for such a union of Christians, and such a forgetting of 
personal prejudices, for the sake of the wide circulation 
of the Divine word, he never wavered. He had “ en¬ 
throned the Bible Society in his heart; and he thought, 
and spoke, and wrote, from day to day, as if all his in¬ 
terests were staked on its support and advancement.” 

God had endowed him eminently with the tongue of 
an eloquent speaker, and the “ pen of a ready writer.” 
He had the higher praise of a disciplined judgment, and 
a piercing intelligence, combined with frankness, can¬ 
dour, urbanity, and diligence, which hardly allowed itself 
a pause. “Whether he ascended the pulpit, or entered 
the crowded hall, or prosecuted the details of business, or 
carried on a vast correspondence, or undertook the task 
of the historian, or became a fellow-traveller, or spared a 
few hours to the social circle, or rejoined his family, he 
was still the gifted, the judicious, the admirable Owen.” 

These particulars are chiefly derived from the affec¬ 
tionate yet considerate statements of the man who knew 
him best, in connection with the Society which they both 
served and loved,—the Rev. Joseph Hughes, minister of 


MR. HUGHES. 


233 



a Baptist church, at Battersea, who for almost thirty 
years was also the faithful and invaluable secretary of the 
British and Foreign Bible Society. 

It was he whose warm heart and enlarged views first 

dictated the words, “ If 
for Wales, why not for 
the world ?” He also 
wrote the essay which 
first announced the 
plan of “ the proposed 
society,” deeply inte¬ 
resting to read, now 
that his voice is silent 
in the grave, while the 
Society keeps its Jubi¬ 
lee, and is fulfilling its 
promise to the whole 
earth. 

In this essay, the 
Societies which had 
already begun to dis¬ 
tribute the Scriptures 
are enumerated. They are as follows:— 

The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 
founded in 1698; 

The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Fo¬ 
reign Parts, in 1701; 

The Society, in Scotland, for Propagating Christian 
Knowledge, in 1709; 

The Society for Promoting Keligious Knowledge among 
the Poor, in 1750; 

The Bible Society for the Use of the Army and Navy, 
in 1780; 

The Society for Support and Encouragement of Sun¬ 
day Schools, 1785. 

After describing their arrangements, which, though 
excellent, were insufficient to meet the wants even of 



234 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Christendom alone, Mr. Hughes sketched the idea of the 
Society which “ should be supported by Christians in 
general, should smile alike on Britons and on Foreigners, 
should conquer the wide empire of darkness, and, by the 
light of truth, should scatter the watchful spirits that 
guard its frontier.” 

The “universal effort,” which Mr. Hughes suggested, 
has been made, and the light of truth has gone forth, 
and is welcomed by “ the nations”; but it is for you of 
this generation to take up the work which your fathers 
have begun. We hope to show you what fifty years have 
seen accomplished; but it is as nothing to the magnitude 
of that which remains to be done. 

We need more men like Hughes, and Owen, and 
Steinkopff, with their self-denying energy, and their 
sanctified temper, for the service of the British and 
Foreign Bible Society. We require also that the gold 
of this world should flow into this noble channel, with 
something like the tide which attends a single scene of 
festive pleasure,—such as the race-course at Epsom: and 
we believe that, when God sees fit, we shall have it; for, 
at the close of this fifty years, are not China and India , 
with their 500 millions of souls, yet unevangelised, though 
the Scriptures are translated into their languages, and many 
of the barriers to their circulation have been removed? 

With this fact before our eyes, is one hundred thousand 
pounds too much to look for from this age of gold, 
as its Jubilee-offering to the Book of God, from all the 
world ? 

Is there any one who can consider the Book itself, and 
mark its history, although struck only in broad outline 
to arouse young minds to seek it further, and yet refuse 
to aid in this noble service ? 

We know that the class to whom this volume is more 
particularly addressed, prefer facts to inferences, example 
to precept, anecdotes to statistics, and that principles sink 
deepest into their minds by the power of biography and 


THE SOCIETY THE RESULT OF EDUCATION. 235 

narrative. They must, however, follow us for a little 
while into the statements of the first proceedings of the 
Society, before we claim their further attention to the 
lives and histories of its secretaries. 

In concluding this chapter, we may observe, that the 
Bible Society would not have been, at the commence¬ 
ment of the nineteenth century, the want of the age, but 
for the advance of popular education, which had then 
begun to prepare the world to receive the seed of God’s 
holy word. The Sunday-school Societies, the Missionary 
Institutions, the National, and British and Foreign School 
Societies, the design of which is to educate the labouring 
and manufacturing classes, all arose about this time, and 
in one luminous host led the way into the kingdom of 
darkness; each and all called upon the Bible Society to 
supply them with the Scriptures, that they might dis¬ 
pense them abroad. The schools could not do without 
cheap Bibles. The missionaries required the Bible in 
ancient and modern versions. The united action of all 
those Societies has distinguished the nineteenth century 
above every other. It is the age in which people are 
educated, and the age in which provision is made to 
supply them freely with the Holy Scriptures. 


236 


CHAPTER II. 

ARRIVAL OR BIBLES IN WALES.—ANSWER TO PRAYER FOR MR. 

CHARLES.-HIS VISIT TO IRELAND.-HIS FUNERAL.-WANT OF 

THE SCRIPTURES IN SCOTLAND AND IN FRANCE.—REVOCATION OF 

THE EDICT OF NANTES, AND ITS RESULTS.-SUFFERINGS OF THE 

HUGUENOTS AND VAUDOIS.—REACTION OF INFIDELITY.-DESIRE 

OF ENGLAND TO CIRCULATE THE BIBLE IN FRANCE.-OBERLIN 

AND THE BAN DE LA ROCHE.-SCRIPTURE-READERS.-BIBLE 

SOCIETIES AT WALDBACH AND NUREMBERG.-SCARCITY OF THE 

SCRIPTURES EVEN IN EUROPE.—THEIR CIRCULATION AMONG 
FRENCH AND SPANISH PRISONERS OF WAR.—BIBLE SOCIETY AT 

BERLIN.-WILLINGNESS OF A PRIEST TO DISTRIBUTE THE NEW' 

TESTAMENT.—THE FIELD OF LABOUR IN ASIA.—CHINESE GOSPELS 

IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.-INDIA AND THE TAMIL LANGUAGE.- 

AFRICA.—AMERICA. 

One of the earliest efforts of the committee of the Bible 
Society was, naturally, to provide an edition of Welsh 
Bibles and Testaments: they first inquired, as has ever 
been their practice in like circumstances, whether a pre¬ 
vious revision might not be necessary; and since this was 
the case, some delay necessarily took place, so that the 
supply of 20,000 Bibles, and 5000 large Testaments, 
printed for the first time by stereotype-plates, was not 
ready for distribution until July, 1806. An eye-witness 
thus describes its reception: “When the arrival of the 
cart was announced, which carried the first sacred load, 
the Welsh peasants went out in crowds to meet it, wel¬ 
comed it as the Israelites did the ark of old, drew it into 
the town, and eagerly bore off every copy as rapidly as 
they could be dispersed. The young people consumed 


ANSWER TO PRATER FOR MR. CHARLES. 237 

the whole night in reading it, and labourers carried it 
with them to the fields, that they might enjoy it during 
the intervals of their labour.” 

Mr. Charles, with whose memory we cannot but con¬ 
nect these Welsh Bibles, was travelling, in the autumn 
of 1799, over a mountain in Merionethshire, one frosty 
night, and had his hand frost-bitten: an illness followed, 
and his life was in danger. Under these circumstances, 
his friends met to pray for his restoration, and one person, 
alluding to the fifteen years added to Hezekiah’s life, of 
old, entreated God to spare Mr. Charles’s life also fifteen 
years: “ Fifteen years, 0 Lord! add but fifteen years to 
the life of thy servant! Spare him for fifteen years more 
to thy church and thy people!” Mr. Charles heard of 
this praynr, and it made a deep impression on his mind. 
He mentioned it to several friends during the last years 
of his life, for his death did occur just at the close of the 
fifteen years. 

It was during this period of fifteen years that the most 
important acts of his life took place—the most valuable 
of his works were written—the complete establishment 
of the Sunday-schools was effected; and it was during 
this period he was made one of the honourable instruments 
employed by Providence to originate the Bible Society. 
What great and glorious answers were these to the fervent 
prayer of the poor, simple, old Christian pilgrim at Bala! 

Mr. Charles was a most industrious man, usually rising 
between four and five in the morning. He lived ten 
years after the commencement of the Bible Society. His 
visit to Ireland was paid, in company with Mr. Hughes, 
Dr. Bogue, and S. Mills, Esq., for the Hibernian Society, 
taking with them one thousand Testaments to distri¬ 
bute on their way. He noticed that the poor in their 
cabins were very civil and communicative, but entirely 
ignorant of the Bible. In Ireland, at this time, not 
above a third even of Protestant families possessed a 
Bible, while, amongst Roman Catholics, far more nume- 


238 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


rous, a Bible was probably not to be found in more than 
one out of 500 families. He was of opinion that religion 
could not be diffused among them without Bibles, and 
preaching in their own language, and schools to teach 
them to read Irish. “We have not met,” says he, “ with 
one person who could read Irish, and there are no ele¬ 
mentary books in the language. Circulating schools 
might do wonders here.” 

All these four measures of improvement have been 
adopted. Bibles have been printed in Irish, schools have 
been opened to teach it, Scripture-readers are appointed, 
and the gospel is preached to the people in their own 
tongue. Much of this good has issued from the visit of 
Mr. Charles, Mr. Hughes, and their companions. 

The former was called not long after this visit to 
receive his reward. He died in the fifty-ninth year of 
his age, and his good wife followed him three weeks 
afterwards. 

All who had ever known him, spoke of him as “ the 
good Mr. Charles.” Vast multitudes attended his funeral, 
and in procession sang hymns from Bala to Llanycil, the 
parish church, about a mile distant. He had been an 
“ epistle of Christ, known and read of all men.” His 
very countenance was heavenly in its expression, and 
showed the serene mind within. By his works “ he, 
being dead, yet speaketh.” 

Having thus ascertained the state of Wales and of Ire¬ 
land, at the commencement of its operations, the attention 
of the Bible Society was about this time called also to the 
Gaelic Scriptures; and it was ascertained that in the 
Highlands of Scotland very few persons were in possession 
of a complete Bible. The Gaelic Bible had been pub¬ 
lished in four volumes, and about one in forty persons 
might possess one of these. A complete copy was, from 
its cost, quite beyond the ability of any poor person to 
purchase, and, in fact, was not easily to be procured at 



THE GAELIC BIBLE.—FRANCE. 239 

all. In the Isle of Skye, then containing about 15,000 
persons, and since so memorable for misery and famine, 
scarcely one Gaelic Bible was to be found. 

A circular was in the summer of 1807 dispatched to 
the ministers of the Church of Scotland throughout the 
Highlands, saying, that the whole Gaelic Bible would be 
sold to subscribers, in October following, at 35 . 3d ., and 
the Testament at 10 d. ;—information which excited the 
liveliest joy and gratitude in every manse and cottage. 
“ I do not suppose,” says one minister, “ that, among 
4000 souls under my pastoral care, there are a dozen 
Gaelic Bibles.” Another says, “We are very grateful for 
this prospect of providing ourselves with the Holy Scrip¬ 
tures in our native mother-tongue,—a thing long wished 
for over all the Highlands of Scotland. Many of the poor 
of Glasgow, on hearing of these cheap Scriptures in their 
native tongue, expressed their gratitude with tears of joy. 
Each copy has hitherto cost 2 5s. at least.” 

There was, therefore, proof enough that the Society 
was wanted at home. But while it began to fulfil its 
mission throughout the Isles of Britain, it had also to 
look abroad , and in Roman-Catholic, Mahomedan, and 
Heathen countries, to find the word of God comparatively 
and almost utterly unknown. 

We purpose to give, in the first place, a picture of the 
want of it in France. 

You have heard of the two translations of the Bible 
which had been made in the sixteenth century, by Olive- 
tan and De Sacy, and carried forth to a wide extent by 
colporteurs. There were various horrible decrees issued 
by the parliament at Paris against the book-carriers, who 
had travelled all over the country, and excited thereby, 
to the fullest extent, the wrath of all those who wished 
to hide the Book. Beza, in his “ Eccjesiastical History 
of the Reformed Churches,” quotes the names of several 
Bible-colporteurs, who expiated in the flames, and by the 



240 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


most dreadful tortures, the crime of having distributed 
the word of God. 

After this, the very existence of colporteurs, in France, 
ceased; and then, towards the close of the seventeenth 
century, on the 2nd of October, 1685, came the fatal re¬ 
vocation of the edict of Nantes. Nantes is a town in 
Brittany, where Henry IV. had signed an edict in their 
favour, proclaiming liberty of conscience, and appointing 
places of safety for the Huguenots: this edict had passed 
in 1598. 

The old chancellor of Louis XIV., Le Tellier, at the 
age of eighty-three, being a violent Komanist, and think¬ 
ing he did God service, requested the king to afford him 
the consolation, before he died, of signing the revocation 
of this edict. His desire was accomplished, and all the 
Huguenots in the kingdom were abandoned to military 
execution. The dying chancellor, on signing the edict, 
actually quoted the beautiful words of Simeon. 

Then began the destruction of the Protestant churches, 
the shutting up of the schools, and the banishment of all 
ministers of the reformed faith, within fifteen days. 
Compliance was to be enforced with the sword; troops 
were spread over Normandy, Brittany, Languedoc, and 
Provence ; and, by their bitter cruelties, a fourth of the 
kingdom was depopulated, its trade ruined, the whole 
country being abandoned to the pillage of dragoons. 

“ By this edict,” says St. Simon, “ punishment and 
torture awaited thousands, families were stripped of their 
possessions, relations armed against each other, and our 
manufactures transferred to the stranger. The world saw 
crowds of their fellow-creatures proscribed, naked, fugi¬ 
tive, guilty of no crime, and yet driven to seek an asylum 
in foreign lands. Their own country was, in the mean¬ 
time, subjected to the lash and the galleys, the noble, 
the affluent, the aged, the weak, often distinguished by 
their rank no less than by their piety and virtue;—and 
all this on no other account than that of their religion. 


REVOCATION OF THE EDICT OF NANTES. 241 

Meanwhile, vast numbers were either forced to conform, 
or feigned to do so, and sacrificed their conscience to their 
worldly interests. Within twenty-four hours, the same 
persons were frequently conducted from tortures to ab¬ 
juration, from abjuration to the communion-table, at¬ 
tended to each alike by the common executioner.” * 

“ On the most moderate computation, the numbers who 
left the kingdom were 400,000, while an equal number 
perished, on going into exile, of famine or fatigue, in 
prison, in the galleys, and on the scaffold; and a million 
besides, seemingly converted, maintained in secret, amid 
tears and desolation, the faith of their forefathers. 

“Bossuet, Flechier, and the Roman hierarchy, were in 
raptures at the daily accounts of conversion: 6000 abjur¬ 
ing in one place, 10,000 in another, the churches could 
not hold the converts; but it is not thus that the real 
conversion of mankind is effected; dragoons and stripes 
will never permanently enchain the human mind; and 
this single act of Louis XIV. did more to enfeeble France, 
than all his victories had done to strengthen her.”f 

Of course this persecution extended to the Vaudois 
valleys. There, their inhabitants were henceforth and 
for ever to cease and discontinue all the exercises of their 
religion: all the churches and schools were to be razed 
to the ground; and whosoever on their sick-beds refused 
the sacraments of the Popish Church, were to be drawn 
out on a hurdle, and thrown upon the way-side to die. 
Every new-born child was, at a week old, to be taken to 
the cure, and admitted into the Roman-Catholic Church, 
or the mother was to be publicly whipped with rods, and 
the father sentenced for five years to the galleys. These 
and other monstrous threats, the Yaudois, acting as one 
man, resolved to resist to the last gasp, and they did so; 
but, oh ! at what a price!—betrayed and massacred with 
cruelties of which we will tell you no more. Out of the 

* St. Simon’s “ Memoirs.” f Alison’s “ History of Europe.” 


242 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


15,000 Vaudois, who constituted the population of the 
valleys a few months before, only 2656 reached a refuge 
in Geneva. One half of the generous population came 
out to meet them at the Arve, the river which bounds 
their sublime territory, and there competed, as for an 
honour, who should receive into his hospitable dwelling 
these poor sufferers. From Geneva they were afterwards 
scattered to Brandenburg, to Wurtemburg, to Holland, 
to America; and so, through the Yaudois valleys, reigned 
once more the silence of death and desolation. 

“ But it was by enduring, not inflicting tortures, that 
the apostles established Christianity on an imperishable 
foundation. The tears of the innocent Huguenots were 
registered in heaven. They brought down an awful visi¬ 
tation on the third and fourth generations; and from the 
revocation of the edict of Nantes is to be dated the com¬ 
mencement of a series of causes and effects which closed 
the reign of Louis X1Y. in mourning, and brought on the 
re-action of infidelity and atheism, which issued in the 
Revolution that overthrew the throne and the church, 
and covered France with indelible stains of bloodshed 
and disgrace.” 

In November, 1804, a letter was received from M. 
Oberlin, the pastor of the Ban de la Roche, a dreary and 
secluded territory, in Alsace, at twelve leagues’ distance 
from Strasbourg, of a very interesting character. The 
Ban de la Roche was favoured in a peculiar degree with 
the benefits of education amidst surrounding ignorance, 
through the labours of this excellent Lutheran clergyman. 
Like Mr. Charles of Bala, he prepared his people to re¬ 
ceive the Scriptures, and excited the desire for them, and 
at the same time he sought in every way to improve their 
temporal condition, teaching them to make roads, build 
cottages, raise crops, etc.: still they were extremely poor, 
and destitute of the word of God. He therefore, at Basle, 
at great expense, procured three copies of the French 



M. OBERLIN. 


243 


Bible, from which purchase ensued most gratifying re¬ 
sults. Three poor villagers, to whom they were given, 
being devoted Bible-missionaries, went from cottage to 
cottage to read to the inmates the sacred volume, lending 
it to one for a day, to another for a shorter period, every 
time that a desire for such loan was manifested. These 
were indeed colporteurs, whose labours were only stopped 
by the wearing out of the three copies, passing, as they 
did, through so many hands little used to take care of 
books. 

Then Pastor Oberlin heard of the British and Foreign 
Bible Society, and begged its help in his work: to him 
the committee made their first grant in favour of France, 
of 20 1. His letter, describing the three devoted women 
to whom he meant to give the first new Bibles, is pre¬ 
served among its records. Sophia Bernard,—who had 
undertaken the support and education of three helpless 
boys, whom their wicked father often trampled under his 
feet, when, starving with hunger, they dared to cry for 
food, and who had likewise saved the lives of four Roman- 
Catholic children, a prey to want and famine, supporting 
all seven by the labour of her own hands, and bringing 
up these poor children in the most careful and excellent 
manner,—was to have a new Bible, considering that her 
own was so often lent out in different Roman-Catholic 
villages. 

A second was to be given to Maria Schepler, who lived 
in a part of the parish where all the people were so poor 
that they were obliged to lend their clothes to each other, 
when they attended the communion. Maria was mother, 
benefactress, and teacher, to the whole village where she 
lived, and also to neighbouring districts; she, too, brought 
up orphans, kept a school for them, and was always lend¬ 
ing her Bible to those who were destitute of it. 

The third Bible was to be given to Catherine Scheid- 
degger, another mother to orphans, and teacher of the 
poor: u and the eyes of all of them,” said Oberlin, “ will 


244 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


overflow with grateful tears, if they are favoured with the 
present of a Bible.” 

It is worthy of notice that the active benevolence of 
thousands of the ladies of England, as well as in France 
and other countries, in promoting the interests of the 
Society during the last half century, may be said to have 
derived its origin from the humble efforts of these poor 
women in the Ban de la Roche. This was the small 
rivulet among the mountains that has given rise to the 
majestic river. 

Mr. Owen visited M. Oberlin’s parish, in 1818, and saw 
“ two of these interesting peasants,—the other had been 
removed to her rest. He told them that he felt as if he 
had known them for nearly fourteen years, and that they 
had stirred up the zeal of many to labour after their 
example. ‘Oh sir!’ said Sophia Bernard, ‘this does indeed 
humble us’; adding many remarks in relation to their 
obscurity, the imperfection of their works, and the 
honour they considered it to labour for Him who had 
done every thing for them.” 

From the first year of the establishment of the British 
and Foreign Bible Society, Pastor Oberlin, his son Henry, 
and M. Legrand, formed a small committee in the parish 
of Waldbach, which became a central point for scattering 
the Scriptures throughout France; and more than 10,000 
Bibles and Testaments were circulated throughout that 
country before the Paris Bible Society was formed. During 
a journey in the south of France, in 1815, for that Society, 
the excellent Henry Oberlin caught a severe cold, in assist¬ 
ing to extinguish a fire in some town; and, returning to 
the Ban de la Roche, died of consumption, amid the 
regrets of his friends and neighbours. 

At Nuremberg, also, an imperial city of Germany, a 
Bible Society was formed, in 1814, to co-operate with 
that in London, to which the British and Foreign Bible 
Society presented 100/., to enable it immediately to print 



PRISONERS OF WAR, AT PLYMOUTH. 245 

5000 German Testaments, selling them at fivepence each. 
This auxiliary proved “ the cradle of our continental 
greatness.” 

It is very interesting to refer back to these small begin¬ 
nings of the British and Foreign Bible Society itself, and 
to the rise of its first tributary streams. The number of 
these steadily and rapidly increased; for the secretaries 
made it their chief business, in its early days, to obtain all 
the information they could, respecting the want of the 
Scriptures in every part of the world. 

But it was now a time of war all over Europe—a time 
which may be distinctly remembered by some of the 
parents of our young friends, but which they, the children 
of an almost forty years’ peace, have little power to 
realize. 

Great Britain, from her immense resources, was univer¬ 
sally allowed to be the arbiter of nations, and the most 
powerful of kingdoms; and after the peace of Amiens, in 
1802, was engaged in hostilities against the power of 
Napoleon. 

Among the French and Spanish prisoners of war, the 
Bible Society occupied itself in distributing the Scrip¬ 
tures in their native languages. They directed 2000 
Spanish Testaments to be printed, and expended 100/. 
upon the purchase of Testaments, in French, preparing, 
meanwhile, a stereotype edition of the latter. It appeared, 
that out of a number of 5000 French prisoners, at Ply¬ 
mouth, nearly half were able to read, and out of 1700 
Spanish, 800. A correspondent says, “ Many sought the 
books with tears and entreaties, and received the words of 
eternal life; since which, I have witnessed the most pleas¬ 
ing sight that my eyes ever beheld—nearly one thousand 
poor prisoners sitting round the prison-walls, reading the 
word of God, with an apparent eagerness that would have 
put many professing Christians to the blush.” 

From time to time, exchange of prisoners was made, 
and thus the word of God crossed the water, with the 


246 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


returning soldiers. Several of these stray Bibles were 
known to have led to the foundation of Protestant 
churches; and some of the present colporteurs have been 
powerfully aided in their mission, by men who were 
formerly prisoners of war in England. 

Besides making this happy use of the quarrels of 
nations, the Society continued to avail itself of every 
possible point of access to the continent, and to aid every 
association established abroad, to sell the Scriptures in 
their own lands, at reduced prices. 

The foundation of a Bible Society was laid at Berlin, in 
1806, and received the sanction of his majesty the King 
of Prussia. To this institution, as to that of Nuremberg, 
100/. was voted by the British and Foreign Bible Society. 

If this was the field of labour that lay before the 
Society in Europe, when it passed over to Asia, it be¬ 
held almost the whole of that wide continent yet to be 
possessed. Its first attention was drawn toward China, 
by the notice of a manuscript, in Chinese, existing in 
the British Museum, of the chief part of the New Testa¬ 
ment, which it was at first proposed that the Society 
should print, with the view of circulating it among 360 
millions of people. It was found, however, that, owing 
to the intricacy of the Chinese characters, this could only 
be done at the expense of two guineas each volume, and 
the intention was relinquished until a future day. In 
the meantime, the indefatigable Dr. Morrison went to 
work in his cellar, at Canton, on a fresh translation, to 
which, however, the former was of some service. 

As we have before observed, God provided men for 
the secretaries, just such as He needed; and now He 
provided suitable men for translators, or rather for the 
foundation of the work of translation ; for that, during 
the last half century, has in every version made progress 
by degrees towards perfection. 




TAMIL VERSION FOR INDIA. 


247 


When Carey, Marshman, and Ward sat down to render 
the word of God into the fifteen polished languages of 
India, with its millions of souls, that word existed only 
in the Tamil, the translation of Schultze, the missionary of 
the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. The 
important territory in which the Tamil is spoken includes 
Madras, Tanjore, Trichinopoly, Madura, Tinnevelly, and 
Coimbatoor. It came under British government in the 
year 1801, and the inhabitants have been estimated at 
more than six millions. They are chiefly Hindus of the 
Brahminical sect. 

The scarcity of the Scriptures in the Tamil country 
was first pressed upon the notice of the British and 
Foreign Bible Society, by Dr. Buchanan, in 1806. He 
speaks of ten or twelve thousand Protestant Christians, of 
whom not one in a hundred had a New Testament. In 
consequence, the committee bought up all the copies of 
the Tamil Scriptures that could be obtained, and sent 
them to Tanjore, in 1810, where they were received wdth 
the most lively gratitude. 

The spirit in which the Society’s liberal grants of help 
to the missionaries and translators in India were made, 
is shown by the letter they wrote to accompany the gift: 
11 The committee would by no means have you under¬ 
stand, that their design of aiding you in your glorious 
work is ended with these donations: on the contrary, they 
consider your undertaking as vast and progressive, and 
are determined to sustain you in it, to the utmost of their 
ability, by liberal and successive supplies.” This was a 
letter written in 1810. 


Meanwhile, over the islands of the Pacific and the Indian 
Archipelago lay the vail of deep darkness. The state of 
Africa was that of unexplored ignorance, except that here 
and there the margin of the south was illumined by Bibles 
from Holland ; but for the interior there was no Bible. 

The only region upon which the light of revelation 



248 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


could be said in any degree to shine, was the northern 
line, where Arabic is spoken; for, although versions of 
the Coptic and Ethiopic had, as we have seen, in early 
times been made, yet by the mass of the people they 
were neither read nor understood. 


America, in her northern regions, fared more gener¬ 
ously : the colonies of England were partially supplied. 
The Bible constituted the inheritance of the magnificent 
Union of the States: the pilgrim fathers had conveyed it 
in the “ Mayflower,” in the year 1620; Oglethorpe bore 
it to Georgia, and thus it was embalmed in the memory 
of his people. Captain Norton, a chief of six nations of 
Indians in Upper Canada, translated the Gospel of John 
into the Mohawk dialect—the current language of those 
six nations—and, in the first year of its existence, the 
Bible Society printed 2000 copies of this Gospel, for cir¬ 
culation in Canada. John Eliot’s version of the New 
Testament, in the Virginian language, had been circulated 
in Massachusetts, in 1661, also to the number of 2000 
copies; but in Mexico, the western isles, and the king¬ 
doms of the southern hemisphere, although the people 
were called Christians, and acknowledged a belief in reve¬ 
lation, few had ever seen a Bible. 


Such was the “immense range” on which the British 
and Foreign Bible Society looked forth in the year 1807; 
and, measuring, as they say, from north to south from 
Iceland to the Cape of Good Hope, or from east to west 
from Hindustan to Buenos Ayres (China was not then 
open to the Bible), “ they saw no other limits to the 
beneficial operation of this Institution, than that which 
their funds might prescribe; but they indulged the ani¬ 
mating hope, that, by the progressive efforts of the So¬ 
ciety, in circulating the Holy Scriptures, ‘ the earth shall 
be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as 
the waters cover the sea ’ ” (Habak. ii. 14k 




249 


CHAPTER III. 

THE BIBLE SOCIETY’S “ REPORTS ” NOT DULL BOOKS : WHAT IT IS 

THAT THEY CONTAIN.-THE SWAY OF GREAT BRITAIN AND ITS 

PURPOSE.-THE WORLD’S INHABITANTS, IN FIVE DIVISIONS.-THE 

WORK OF THE BIBLE SOCIETY AMONGST EACH.-THE WAY IT IS 

ACCOMPLISHED, BY DIVISION OF LABOUR, AND BY VARIOUS AGENTS. 

-THE BIBLE SOCIETY LIKE THE BANIAN TREE.-ITS FIBRES 

TAKING ROOT IN THE PROTESTANT COUNTRIES, FIRST IN ENGLAND, 

BY THE BIBLE ASSOCIATIONS AND AUXILIARIES.-THE SYSTEM 

GRADUALLY MATURED.-DIVISION OF DISTRICTS.-LADIES’ COM¬ 
MITTEES.-THE SYSTEM OF CO-OPERATION.-OBJECTIONS TO THE 

SOCIETY.-LORD TEIGNMOUTh’s ANSWER.-MR. DEALTRy’s.-MR. 

WARD’S.-OPERATIONS AT HOME.-EXTRACTS FROM REPORTS OF 

COLLECTORS.-THE DYING CHILD.-THE OLD WOMAN AND THE 

WOOL.-THE BIBLE-BEES.-THE GUN AND THE BIBLE.-MR. DUD¬ 
LEY’S REVIEW.-THE DEATH OF MR. OWEN.-DISTRIBUTION OF 

THE SCRIPTURES IN IRELAND.-ANECDOTES. 

It is by no means easy to arrange and condense the mass 
of information which we wish to convey to your minds, 
concerning the rise and progress of this most magnificent 
of Societies. 

You are not likely to read through sixteen volumes 
of “ Reports,” five of “ Monthly Extracts ” from the corre¬ 
spondence of the Society, Mr. Owen’s three volumes of 
its History, and Mr. Dudley’s admirable Analysis of its 
system. It is possible, that, in glancing at them in your 
fathers’ libraries, you may have even thought them “ dull 
books,” or at least books which it did not concern you to 
examine; nevertheless, we shall try and make you wish 
to read them. 

These books contain in truthful detail the history of 


250 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


the progress of God’s word through the world,—of the 
uttering of his voice to all the earth. It is uttered in 
more majestic (because in more perfected) form than it 
was to Israel at Sinai. The whole Bible is ours , “ upon 
whom the ends of the world are come.” We have not 
only a Pentateuch, but a New Testament; and “ freely 
as we have received, freely we should give.” 

We are not as the Jews were,—simply the early guar¬ 
dians of the oracles of God, but we are their dispensers 
to all the earth. For this God has raised Great Britain to 
her pre-eminence amongst the nations; for this has He 
placed under her island sway vast continents and distant 
climes, and has given her a dominion so extraordinary, 
that, as we trace its boundaries, its extent seems scarcely 
to be credible. 

The population of the British Isles alone is greater than 
that of Spain, Portugal, Sweden, and Norway, added to¬ 
gether; and besides her Home Empire, England holds, 
in Europe, the Channel Isles, Gibraltar, Malta, and the 
Ionian Isles. 

In America , her possessions are Upper and Lower 
Canada, a territory larger than France and Spain; New 
Brunswick, larger than Scotland; Nova Scotia, Prince 
Edward’s Island, and Newfoundland, comprehending to¬ 
gether as great a space as England and Wales ; with the 
Hudson’s Bay territory, extending to the pole; thirteen 
islands in the West Indies, with the Bermudas, the 
Bahamas, and the Virgin Isles; Honduras, larger than 
Holland; and British Guiana, the size of Wales. 

In Africa , Sierra Leone, in whose capital, Free-town, 
she has a community of 50,000 freed slaves! Cape Coast 
Castle, and the adjacent settlements ; the islands of Ascen¬ 
sion and of St. Helena ; Port Natal, and the Cape Colony 
(equal in extent to France, and with a climate similar to 
that of Spain), to which she has lately given a free con¬ 
stitution. 

In Asia , the Mauritius; with other isles in the Indian 


GREAT BRITAIN’S SWAY, AND ITS PURPOSE. 251 

Ocean ; Ceylon, the isle of palms, of spices, and of pearls, 
nearly equal in size to Scotland; and India—a kingdom 
including 448,000 square miles, yielding a revenue ex¬ 
ceeding the revenue of all the Russias, and whose gover¬ 
nor-general has at his command an army of 300,000 men. 

Further India, likewise, with its divisions of Malacca 
and Singapore; Penang; and Hong Kong, in China; 
with Australia, the island continent, only to be compared 
in space with three-fifths of Europe; Van Diemen’s Land, 
as large as Ireland ; and New Zealand, nearly the size of 
Great Britain itself. 

The Rev. Wm. Arthur, formerly a missionary in India, 
who has given a picture of this vast extent of power, 
in a lecture delivered to the young men of London, ob¬ 
serves, that “ our Queen reigns over more Roman Catho¬ 
lics than the Pope, over more Mahomedans than the 
Sublime Porte, and over more Pagans than there are in 
the whole continent of Africa! ” 

Now, it is for God’s word’s sake that Great Britain has 
been thus made the mistress of the world. We read with 
glowing hearts of her possessions and her conquests, often 
gained with comparatively little bloodshed, and as it were 
ceded to her acknowledged right, and feel the pride of 
Britons that we were born under her temperate and 
changeful skies. And can we possibly think the history 
of her noblest deeds, which these Bible Reports record, 
dull and unworthy to be read? Surely those who read 
and love the Bible,—those to whose hearts it has effec¬ 
tually revealed its tidings of great joy, and its solace in 
the hour of sorrow,—those in whose homes it is the law 
of love, and the rule of faith and practice ,—must care to 
know the history of that noble Society whose object it is 
not only to distribute this Bible in every country of the 
world, but to put it into the hands of every human being. 

You will look with reverence on a “ Bible Report,” as 
it is called, if you are prepared to understand it ,—if you 
have in your mind’s eye that portion of the earth, the 


252 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


wide continent, or the smiling island, to which the word 
of God has been carried in its own language, whether for 
the first time, or in repeated abundance, and if you know 
what has been the need of the word there, which called 
for that supply,—if you could see, also, the change which 
the reception of that word has produced, and, if it were a 
heathen country, the moral conduct, the upright dealing, 
the purer manners, and the decorous dress, which, as 
experience testifies, are “ sure to follow, wherever the 
reading of the Bible becomes general.” 

In order, therefore, to assist your memories, we shall 
divide the world into separate regions, not according to 
their geographical order, but according to the general 
religious belief of their several inhabitants, and survey the 
proceedings of the Bible Society within each range. 

We must have five divisions— 

1. The Protestant countries. 

2. The Jews, and remnants of ancient Chris¬ 
tian Churches. 

3. Those where the Roman-Catholic religion 
and the Greek Church prevail. 

4. The Mahomedan countries. 

5. The Heathen or Pagan countries. 

What has been the work of the British and Foreign 
Bible Society in each of these? And in what way, and 
by whom, was it accomplished? We must answer the 
latter question first. 

It has been accomplished upon the principle of division 
of labour. Fifty persons, as you have seen, are em¬ 
ployed upon the mere paper, and printing, and binding 
of a Bible. When the Book is in existence, as a book, 
it is scattered over the world by various agents. 

Many laborious servants of the Society join to spread it 
abroad:—the missionary, in his exile from his friends and 
country, his own heart cheered by the Book, and his 
hand distributing it wherever he goes;—the travelling 



LABOURS OF THE SOCIETY’S SERVANTS. 253 

agent, “plying his unwearied round of visits,” often amid 
those who care but little to receive them, but often, 
also, where he is warmly welcomed and encouraged;— 
the depositary and accountant, with their assistants, work¬ 
ing at their desks with tireless zeal and fidelity for a long 
term of years;—the invaluable secretaries, carrying on the 
correspondence with all nations;—the translators, who, in 
the land where the language is spoken, sit down to create 
first, perhaps, its grammar and its dictionary, nay, its 
very letters, before they can approach their noble task 
itself;—then the colporteur, in various countries and in 
all weathers, exposed to numerous difficulties and hard¬ 
ships, sometimes received with welcome, it is true, but at 
others with unkindness, and even menace, and sometimes 
subject to slanderous accusations and unjust imprison¬ 
ment;—then there are the unpaid collectors, the life-blood 
of the Society, who also, for the true love of the work, 
engage in their weekly rounds, unnoticed save by Him 
for whose sake they labour. It is by all these that the 
seed is scattered ;—“ the seed is the word,” and “ the 
field is the world.” 

It is to the "persevering labours of all these, as the 
Earl of Carlisle told us at the late memorable Jubilee 
meeting, that the nations owe their 8000 Bible Societies, 
their Bibles in 148 languages, and their forty-six millions 
of copies,—the fruit of the first half century of the exist¬ 
ence of the Bible Society. Well might Mr. Dudley once 
compare it to “ the sacred tree of India,* bending its 
branches to the earth, whence they again sprang forth, 
and extended their refreshing shade throughout the 
land.” 

He meant the banian tree, the ficus Indica , whose 
nature it is to cover with its branches a space sufficient 
to shelter a regiment of cavalry, and which is often used 
as a natural canopy for great assemblies. It was at an 


See Dudley’s “ Analysis,” u. ’ ^ 



The Banian Tree. 

The branches spread to a great extent, dropping their 
fibres here and there, which take root as soon as they 
reach the ground, and rapidly increase in size, till they 
rival the parent trunk, and cover a quantity of ground 
almost incredible. Reinwardt says, that he observed, on 
the island of Semao, in the Indian Archipelago, a large 
wood, whose trunks all proceeded from the stem of a 
single ficus, united with each other by their branches. 

The Bible Societ}' may well be likened to this tree! 


254 THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


encampment under one of these trees, on the river Sutlej, 
that Runjeet Singh, the robber chief, compelled Shah 
Sujah, the representative of a race of kings, to yield up 
to him the Koh-i-noor, that jewel which was the object 
of his insatiate ambition. It is said, that, for a whole 
hour, the exiled monarch gazed on Runjeet Singh, with- 
put speaking, who, still unmoved by this mute eloquence, 
insisted on his demand. 


ENGLAND. 


255 


Let us see how its fibres took root in the Protestant 
countries of the world, during the first twenty-five years 
of its existence,— in England, Scotland, Ireland , Holland, 
half of Germany , three-fifths of Prussia, three-fifths of 
Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland , 
in the United States of America, in Canada, and also in 
the West-Indian Islands, subject to Dutch and Danish, 
Swedish and British sway. 

ENGLAND. 

During the first year of the Society, there were no 
Bibles issued,—the printers being unable to complete 
their work. They did not then print by steam-presses. 
Stereotype-plates were, at this time, made for the English 
Testament; and its circulation was effected, at first, very 
much by the agency of individuals, and by Sunday- 
schools, as also by grants to the Naval and Military 
Bible Society, for the benefit of soldiers and sailors. 

As its Keports became public, its sphere of usefulness 
increased. The production of the first supply of Welsh 
and Gaelic Scriptures, and their reception, have already 
been noticed. Some Bibles and Testaments were also 
provided at low prices for the inhabitants of the Isle of 
Man ; and two years after its formation, i.e., in 1806, its 
first fibre took root, and the committee acknowledged a 
donation from an association of young men, in London, 
formed for the purpose of contributing to its funds. In 
the same year a similar contribution was received from 
the town of Birmingham, where a Bible Association had 
been formed; and these voluntary associations, Mr. Owen 
says, “ contained the rudiments of Auxiliary Bible So¬ 
cieties.” 

In the same year, and in 1807, further associations 
were established at Bath, Glasgow, and Greenock, which 
proposed to receive small monthly subscriptions; and thus, 
by collective additions, the Parent Society, in its third 


256 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


year, told of an increase of 300/. in its annual subscrip¬ 
tions, while more than 1000/. came in from Wales, and 
4000/. from Scotland. During the same year, also, a 
lady added a bequest of 1000 guineas, side by side with 
which appears the contribution of 18/. from the children 
and teachers of the Holborn Sunday-school. It is a 
memorable fact, that Juvenile Bible Associations consti¬ 
tuted the earliest auxiliaries or helps to the Parent In¬ 
stitution, and have continued to the present day to pour 
their small but unfailing rills into that mighty river by 
which all the nations are refreshed. 

But it was reserved for the town of Reading, in 
Berkshire, to give to Great Britain and the world the 
first example of a regular Auxiliary Bible Society. 
Dr. Yalpy, well known to many by his “ Latin Grammar,’’ 
was also an earnest and early friend of the Bible Society. 
He first preached in its behalf, and declared its object; 
and then, with other gentlemen, convened a meeting in 
the town-hall, under the sanction of the mayor, on the 
28th of March, 1809, at which meeting it was determined 
to adopt, as far as possible, the rules and regulations of 
the Parent Society. 

Now this auxiliary had in view two principal objects,— 
one to collect subscriptions (as the former associations had 
done) in aid of the general funds; and the other, with 
half the money it should collect, to purchase Bibles and 
Testaments from the Parent Society, to be distributed in 
its own town and neighbourhood. After the example of 
the Parent society, it appointed a clergyman, a dissenting 
minister, and a layman, for its secretaries. 

The year ending in May, 1810, saw the establishment 
of ten societies like this in England, and three in Scotland. 
But the system was not yet perfect; they had not de¬ 
termined on the way to find out the want of the Bible 
among the poor of their own neighbourhoods; and Mr. 
Richard Phillips, who, in 1810, was elected a member 
of the Parent committee, was the first to point out the 


USEFULNESS OF THE AUXILIARY SYSTEM. 257 

extent of usefulness to which this auxiliary system was 
capable of being applied. 

According to the plans which he proposed and pub¬ 
lished, and which were adopted by the Society as their 
own, the respective auxiliary committees were recom¬ 
mended (for the Parent Institution assumes no control 
over its dependent societies) to pursue the orderly and 
effective way of raising subscriptions, by dividing their 
town or neighbourhood into districts, and appointing two 
or more of their members as visiters in each, to make 
minute and personal inquiries among the habitations of 
the poor, and encourage the sale of Bibles among them, 
at cost or reduced prices, in preference to absolute gift. 

The calls upon the richer part of the population were 
to be made in the same way, with a request for their sup¬ 
port and approbation. A meeting of the committee was 
to be held every month, and a general and public meet¬ 
ing every year. 

To every auxiliary of this kind might be attached, if 
it embraced a wide sphere of labour, twelve or more 
Bible Associations, to be carried on by the same rules and 
regulations. 

The Southwark Auxiliary Bible Society, established in 
1812, afforded a fair example of the working of the system, 
which speedily extended itself over the kingdom of Great 
Britain. The members of the twelve associations con¬ 
nected with this auxiliary, met monthly, each in their own 
committee, transacted their business, and passed over their 
collections to the auxiliary society, which again passed 
them to the Parent committee. 

For two years and a half these twelve committees, all 
composed of gentlemen, were in full operation, and the 
results were very cheering. Many thousand Bibles and 
Testaments were distributed, and 4600/. was remitted to 
the auxiliary society. Still, various cases occurred in 
which subscriptions could only be suitably solicited from 
females, by members of their ow r n sex, and the consequent 


258 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


formation of ladies’ associations, in Southwaik, completed 
the efficiency of that valuable auxiliary. 

Twelve committees of ladies then met, and conducted 
their own business, passing over the proceeds of their 
collections to the treasurer of the gentlemen’s committee, 
and these again to the auxiliary, which, thus receiving 
twenty-four constant tributary streams, not only distri¬ 
buted large numbers of Bibles and Testaments in its own 
neighbourhood, but added greatly to the funds of the 
Parent Society. 

In Great Britain there are now 445 of these auxiliaries, 
with 2825 branches and associations; therefore, if you 
have had patience to follow the business-detail of the 
last two or three pages, and if you have gained an idea of 
the system of the British and Foreign Bible Society, as 
carried out in one place, you have only to multiply this 
idea in your mind, and conceive of thousands of such 
associations, at work, every week and every month, in 
many parts of the world. 

The establishment of the ladies’ associations, in South¬ 
wark, in 1814, brings us to the beginning of those times 
of peace which have happily endured ever since in Eng¬ 
land. 

The machinery of the Society was now perfect, and it 
has continued to act on the same principle and system 
ever since. 

Amid the calamities of an expensive war, its constitu¬ 
tion had been thus far matured, and its treasury supplied. 
Among convicts at Portsmouth, felons in Newgate, and 
to all gaols, hospitals, workhouses, and hulks, its gifts had 
been abundant. 

Meanwhile, you would scarcely believe it, but this 
Society had enemies,—men who, hardly knowing what 
they did, misunderstood and maligned it. Some earnest 
friends of the venerable and excellent Society for Pro¬ 
moting Christian Knowledge, which, as we have seen, 



MR. DEALTRY’S AMUSING FABLE. 


259 


had circulated and translated Bibles as far as its funds 
would allow, conceived that the Bible Society interfered 
with its province, and diminished its income. This So¬ 
ciety was supported, and still is, entirely by members of 
the Church of England. 

To this, Lord Teignmouth, an attached member of 
that church, and also the president of the committee in 
Earl-street, replied, that “ he was informed, and he be¬ 
lieved most correctly, that the annual amount of sub¬ 
scriptions to the Society for Promoting Christian Know¬ 
ledge, had considerably increased since the establishment 
of the Bible Society”; and the Rev. W. Dealtry, M.A., 
Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, in the form of an 
amusing fable on the subject, strongly recommended a 
good understanding between the two Societies. 

“ Once upon a time,” said he, “ in the midst of a 
parched and dreary land, there gushed from the top of a 
mountain a fine spring of water: the wilderness was con¬ 
verted into a garden, where it flowed, and verdure was 
the sure companion of its progress. 

“After some time, a similar stream began to flow from 
the summit of a neighbouring hill. It became the parent 
of many branching rivulets, which cheered the face of 
nature on every side, and carried happiness and abundance 
into the remotest lands. 

“ The good old stream was a little touched with jealousy, 
and addressed its neighbour in the following terms: ‘ Do 
you not know that you are intruding into a country which 
I have pre-occupied, and that you and your rivulets in¬ 
terfere with, impede, and curtail, the inestimable benefits 
of grass and green fields which I have so happily pro¬ 
moted ?’ 

“ ‘ Why,’ said the other, * how can that be ? Are not 
my streams as pure as your own, and does not the desert 
smile likewise wherever I go ?’ 

“ ‘ Your streams do indeed profess to be pure, though 
I have something, if I choose, to say on that point; but 


260 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


I insist upon it, that I am the good old stream, and that 
you are an interloper : I should not err much if I called 
you a thief.’ 

“ ‘ A thief! Have I ever stolen anything from you ?’ 

“ ‘ Yes, you have : it can need no proof, that, if your 
mouth were closed, some of the water which now courses 
along your channels would, by filtration through the 
mountain, fall into mine.’ 

“ ‘ It is certainly very possible that some fifteen or 
twenty drops might have reached you by this under¬ 
ground filtration; but see what a noble body of water I 
possess, and I employ the whole for the benefit of these 
parched and thirsty lands! ’ 

“ ‘ What business, I ask you, have you to flow at all ? 
I existed for ages before any one thought of you ; and I 
am by no means convinced, notwithstanding your impos¬ 
ing and devouring claims, that you confer any benefit 
whatever. Your very complexion is offensive; and, on 
the whole, you offer great possibilities of evil, and are a 
very shabby current; yet, little as I admire you, I would 
rather that you would become a feeder to me, than move 
in this unauthorised manner through the world alone.’ 

“ ‘ My good friend, it is quite impossible : some of my 
rivulets might possibly be turned so as to fall into your 
channel, but there are copious branches, which, from the 
nature of the country, roll on in other directions, and 
cannot by any process be made to combine with yours; 
neither, as I believe, would you be willing to receive 
them; while, therefore, we carry cheerfulness and delight 
on every side, let us be content to pursue our own chan¬ 
nels in quietness and peace.’ ” 

Lord Teignmouth’s assertion, that the first Society was 
benefited by the second, was shown to be true, by another 
clergyman, the Kev. W. Ward, rector of Mayland, near 
Colchester. “ I consider them,” said he, “ not as rivals, 
but the reverse. I consider the new as helpful to the old, 
and that both will promote a more general diffusion of 


COMPARATIVE ISSUES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 261 

Christian knowledge. The harvest is great, and the Lord 
of the harvest seems now to be raising up a great host of 
labourers to reap it. Now, the funds drawn exclusively 
from the members of any one church, even from the Church 
of England itself, are not sufficient to this general diffusion 
of the gospel; but the unlimited resources of the Bible 
Society, the united contributions, legacies, and donations of 
all descriptions of Christians, can do wonders,—can abso¬ 
lutely supply the place of miracles, and the gift of tongues. 
The object is so glorious, so grand, so sublime!—the 
scheme is so full of the love of God, the love of our 
country, and the love of our fellow-creatures,—that it 
should have our last prayers when we lie down at night, 
and our first when we awake in the morning.” 

Mr. Ward also showed, that, in 1803, the year before 
the Bible Society commenced, the subscriptions to the 
Christian Knowledge Society were 2119/., but that in 
1809, they were 3413/.—an increase of above one-half; 
while, as to the issues of Bibles and Testaments, the 
issues from the old Society alone were, in 1803, 17,779, 
but in 1809, they were 22,611 ; while the sum-total of 
Bibles, Testaments, and Psalters, circulated by both 
Societies, in 1809, was 99,883 ;—more Bibles, Testa¬ 
ments, and Psalters, issued in 1809, than in 1800, eighty 
six thousand ! This proof was unanswerable.* 

The triumphant defence which the Bible Society had 
obtained, from the exertion of these distinguished advo¬ 
cates, contributed not a little to elevate the spirits of 
those on whom the toil and responsibility of conducting 
its affairs devolved; and they turned with renewed zeal 
to the field of exertion which lay before them in their 
own country, and in the wide wide world. 

There was still great need of exertion at home. In the 

* We have much pleasure in stating, that the Society for Pro¬ 
moting Christian Knowledge has circulated 7,000,000 of Bibles 
and Testaments, and that its annual distribution amounts to about 
250,000 copies. 


262 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


county of Flint, in a circle of ten parishes, 1300 families 
were found without a Bible, and similar investigations all 
over the country showed similar results; nevertheless, in 
1817, the committee stated, that, as the infancy of their 
Society had given promise of a vigorous youth, so the 
growth of thirteen years had amply confirmed it. They 
looked round on the pleasing fruits of Christian union, 
and attributed to Divine favour alone, successes astonish¬ 
ing in their magnitude; for they found they had labourers 
for every soil,—coadjutors in every quarter of the globe. 

Such, indeed, was the interest which the British and 
Foreign Bible Society had excited, that the prayers of 
thousands attended its progress, and its extinction would 
have been felt as a calamity all over the world. The 
minute-books of the ladies’ committees, whose members 
find easy access to the cottages of the poor, and an ear¬ 
nest welcome from their inmates, tell many a touching 
tale. They prove that collectors of Bible Associations 
are almost invariably greeted with joy, and that, punctual 
in their weekly visits, they are sure to find their humble 
subscribers ready with their money, and grateful for the 
trouble they take to call for subscriptions, and bring the 
Bible to their doors. 

Some say, “ The Bibles delivered this month were 
thought most beautiful.” One woman exclaimed, “ I 
am sure I should never have had my Bible in any other 
way; and if I had had to come to you, instead of your 
coming to me, I much fear I should not have begun yet.” 

In another district, a poor woman, showing signs of 
indifference whether she possessed the Scriptures or not, 
was accosted by her son, a little boy, who said, “ Mother, 
if you do not subscribe for a Bible, I must.” He thus 
persuaded his mother to pay her first penny. 

A subscriber to the Beading Ladies’ Bible Association 
related the following incident to one of the collectors:— 

“ A few weeks ago, a young man came to my shop, 
when the subject of the Bible Society was mentioned. 


PLEASING ANECDOTES. 


263 


On this his indignation was immediately kindled, and he 
expressed the bitterest feeling against it. Remonstrance 
with his passion would then have been useless : we were 
silent, and he left us. My little girl was then lying on her 
death-bed, and though young in years, was old in Christian 
experience. I mentioned the circumstance to her, and 
asked her what should be done. ‘ Oh father !' she replied, 

‘ subscribe for a Bible for him .’ This we did; and when 
1 presented it to the young man, I told him of the desire 
of the dying child. He received it with gratitude, took 
it home, read it, and read it to his fellow-servants, who 
soon wished to possess it for themselves. He brought me 
six shillings for this purpose, and we received it with 
gladness, believing that it is the work of God, and that 
nothing shall impede its triumphant progress.” 

The mother of a large and helpless family regularly 
subscribed for a Bible, during four months. She was 
frequently asked whether, indeed, she could spare the 
weekly penny, and her reply was, “ I never miss it; we 
were very poor indeed when I began to subscribe, but this 
book seems to have brought a blessing into the house; 
we were very lonely without it.” 

You may also like to hear the history of the old woman 
and the wool. A poor widow living on the side of the Black 
Mountains, in Caermarthenshire, attended a public meet¬ 
ing. She had only one shilling in her possession, part of 
which she intended to lay out to buy wool for making an 
apron, and the other part in candles, that she might see 
to spin it in the evenings, after finishing her day’s work 
with the farmers. Having heard the speakers describe 
the sad condition of the poor heathen without Bibles, she 
felt for them so much, that she determined to give six¬ 
pence out of her shilling to the collection, thinking that 
she would do without the apron for some time longer, 
and spin her wool by daylight, when the summer evenings 
came. As the speaker proceeded, the old woman felt 
more and more, till at last she determined to give the 


264 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


shilling altogether; “because,” she said, “I can do better 
without an apron, than the heathen can without the 
word of God.” She cheerfully gave her shilling, went 
home, and slept comfortably that night. At daybreak 
the following morning, a neighbouring farmer called at 
her door, and said, “ Peggy, we have had a dreadful 
night; several of my sheep have been carried away by 
the flood. There are two lying quite dead in the hedge 
of your garden. You may take them if you like, and you 
will get some wool from them.” She thankfully accepted 
the gift; and thus she had wool enough to make three or 
four aprons, and tallow to make candles to spin it. As no 
one knew what she had done the day before but herself 
and her God, she looked upon that occurrence as a very 
kind providence towards her. 

And now, here is another history, just as good, about 
the Bible-bees. 

In the year 1809, at the formation of a Bible Associa¬ 
tion, at Barton, in Lincolnshire, before Mr. and Mrs. W. 
went to the meeting, Mrs. W. said to Mr. W., “We must 
give a guinea to the Bible Society.” “ Nay,” said her 
husband, “ that is too much ; the rich do not give more 
than a guinea, and we are not rich; it will even look 
like ostentation in us to give so much.” “ Still,” said 
Mrs. W., “ if you will not give it, I will .” “ And where 

are you to get it?” said he. “ I have it by me,” said 
she; “do you not remember that you gave me a guinea, 
with which to buy a hive of bees; now, 1 will give that 
guinea to the Bible Society.” “ Then,” said Mr. W., 
“you will go without your bees.” “It is well,” said 
Mrs. W.; “for I love the Bible Society, better than I 
should love the bees.” So they went to the Bible- 
meeting, and the guinea was given. 

They had no sooner reached home, than the wife said 
to her husband, “Oh! see! A swarm of bees has set¬ 
tled on our beech tree: if no one claims them in four-and- 
twenty hours, the swarm will be mine.” No one did 


THE BIBLE-BEES.—THE GUN AND THE BIBLE. 205 


claim them, and they were hived. A day or two after¬ 
wards, Mr. W. said to his wife, “ It appears to me very 
remarkable that Providence should send to us, just now, 
that swarm of bees. Suppose we dedicate these bees to 
the Bible Society?” To this Mrs. W. gladly gave her 
consent. The first year, the hive produced two swarms, 
and they gave two guineas to the Bible Society; the 
second year the three hives produced ten swarms, and 
they gave ten guineas to the Bible Society. It was then 
proposed to them, that instead of giving a guinea for 
each swarm, they should keep a regular account of debtor 
and creditor, placing the expenses of hives, etc., on one 
side, and the produce of wax and honey on the other. 
In the third year, having had some loss from two or three 
of the swarms dying in the winter, the honey and wax 
sold only for 71., which was given to the Society. In 
the fourth year, the produce was 11/., which was also 
given to the Society. 

In 1835, Mr. and Mrs. W. removed into Wiltshire, and 
the bees were then left under the care of other persons. 
The Rev. Mr. Methuen of Devizes mentioned that the 
Society had received ten guineas from the Bible-bees, 
both in 1836 and 1837. 


In the Monthly Extracts is recorded a mournful in¬ 
cident occurring in a district in Cornwall, where there 
was not a Bible Association. A young man, engaged 
in the mines, had become the subject of serious impres¬ 
sions, and wished to possess a Bible of his own. He had 
fixed his choice on the quarto edition, at 22s., which he 
found he could have from Truro, and had laid by 16.$., 
when, in an evil hour, he fell into bad company, and was 
tempted to buy a gun with his savings for the Bible. 
His parents remonstrated, but in vain. The first day he 
went out with it, his worthless gun exploded, the stock 
was shivered, and a part of it penetrated the forehead 
of the unhappy lad, who in an instant fell a lifeless 
corpse. Ah! had there been a faithful collector calling 


266 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


at his door, she would have received his 6d. or Is. as he 
put it by from his earnings, and the Bible—the blessed 
Bible—might have been furnished instead of the awful 
instrument of death! 

It would be easy to multiply incidents: the difficulty 
lies only in selecting them. Every one, who has ever 
been a steady and patient collector of weekly pence from 
the poorer classes, whether to supply them with Bibles 
for themselves, or to afford them an opportunity of cast¬ 
ing their mite, precious as the poor widow’s, into the 
treasury of God, will be able to add to such records from 
their own practical knowledge. 

Whatever be the cause to which we contribute labour, 
and for whose sake we exercise self-denial, we acquire 
a deep interest in it: but this is especially true of the 
Bible Society, from the vast importance and singleness ot 
its object, and its ever-extending influence. 

When Mr. Dudley, who had been one of the most 
indefatigable agents in planting and regulating these 
tributary committees, looked round him in the year 
1821, he spoke of 1000 Bible Associations organised in 
the United Kingdom, of 600 similar institutions in other 
quarters of the globe, of 900,000Z. expended in this noble 
effort to circulate the word of God, and of the translation, 
printing, and distribution of the whole, or portions of 
that word, into eighty languages and dialects, in which 
it had never before been printed; and he also announced 
the fact, that, in the seventeen years since its formation, 
it had just doubled the supply of the Scriptures which it 
found in existence at the period of its birth. 

In the year 1824, the committee thus addressed their 
subscribers— 

“ The true state of the world has been brought more 
fully to light than before. A view has been obtained, 
that, however great and however commendable your 
past labours may have been, reduces them to a cypher, 



NECESSITY FOR PERSEVERANCE. 


267 


and makes them still appear but as the sowing of the 
grain of mustard-seed,—a view that might appal the 
stoutest heart, were it not written, 4 I am with you: fear 
not,’ and, ‘ Is anything too hard for the Lord?’ He who 
has shown you such great things, will show you yet 
greater: your success must only incite you to more ear¬ 
nest, more zealous, more cheerful exertion than ever.” 

On the 3rd of August, 1827, a branch association was 
established at Jarrow colliery. Sixty families were found 
destitute of the Scriptures. This place is rendered sacred 
as having been the residence of the Venerable Bede, the 
first translator even of parts of the Bible for the Anglo- 
Saxons, and the mind is led with devout gratitude to 
contrast the facilities now enjoyed for multiplying and 
distributing the sacred volume in that locality, with the 
barbarism and ignorance which at a former period im¬ 
peded the progress of Divine truth. 

In the twenty-fourth Keport, fifty new societies were 
said to have been added to those already existing; yet, not¬ 
withstanding the vast number of copies diffused through 
the nation, the demand was not nearly satisfied,—a fact 
which proved that there had been a great destitution of 
the Scriptures in the community, and that a desire to 
possess the holy Book had been created and extended to 
a wonderful degree. 

“ There is something at once grand and inspiring in 
the thought, that the written voice of God, the best Book 
in the world, has acquired, in mere number of copies, an 
immense superiority over every other book in the world, 
placing itself by all the good books to improve their 
usefulness, and by all the bad ones to baffle their malig- 
nitv; and this in contrast to the times when millions of 
each successive generation passed through life, and out of 
it, without any dissatisfaction that they had never read, 
or that they had never been able to read, one chapter 
or verse of the Bible.” 

At the close of the year 1822, the Society had to mourn 


268 THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

the loss of its clerical secretary, the Rev. John Owen, by 
the unsparing hand of death. He had for some time been 

declining in strength, 
—the combined result 
of excitement, fatigue, 
and anxiety. No frame 
could have withstood 
the exhausting and de¬ 
structive efforts of la¬ 
bours so varied, so ex¬ 
tensive, and so inces¬ 
sant, as those in which 
he had been eighteen 
years engaged. A brief 
amendment gave hope 
to his friends and ad¬ 
mirers of a perfect re¬ 
covery; but the vital 
energy seemed spent in 
the meridian of his 
course, and the lamp of life only flickered for awhile to 
dwindle and disappear. “ Those are the things” said he 
to his attached co-secretary, Mr. Hughes, who was then 
laying hold of his dry, cold hand, and comforting him 
with the passage, “ Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, 
and afterwards receive me to glory,” “ Those are the 

things -,” said he, when death prevented him from 

finishing the sentence. 

He had done the work of a long life in those few years. 
It is strange that no biographer has yet been found to tell 
its tale; for he seems to have been universally beloved 
and deeply regretted by all who knew him. He had 
been given of God to the Society on the very day of its 
formation, and had guided it with wisdom and unwearied 
energy, during its early and critical years, and he left it 
towering in its strength,—the noblest moral pyramid that 
the nations of earth ever combined to build. 




IRELAND. 


269 


If when there was no written word of God to he circu¬ 
lated on the earth, on the tower of Babel was inscribed 
Confusion,— on the vast pile of the British and Foreign 
Bible Society is now graven Union; and the noblest 
names of earth would be honoured, could they claim to 
be written on the stones that compose it. Those of Owen, 
Hughes, and Steinkopff, are deeply traced upon its base; 
and our young friends may remember, that there is room 
yet for many a name more, of those who shall become its 
devoted and faithful servants, seeking not honour from 
men, but only the praise of Him who seeth in secret. 
This pyramid is still building. It shall never be finished 
till the day when “ the knowledge of the Lord shall cover 
the earth, as the waters cover the sea.” 

IRELAND. 

The committee early turned their thoughts to the 
Roman Catholics of Ireland, amongst whom there was 
said to be a Bible to about every 500 families. Their 
informant then stated, that to print an Irish Bible, at 
that time, would be but of little use, for the people, if 
they read at all, read English. The Society transmitted 
to a clergyman, in Ireland, 1000 copies of the Protestant 
New Testament, and found that they might be circulated 
among the Roman Catholics of Ireland with little diffi¬ 
culty. One thousand copies of a smaller Testament were 
also granted to schools in Ireland, which were numer¬ 
ously attended by Roman-Catholic children. 

In 1813, most zealous and successful exertions seem to 
have been made in Ireland, for the circulation of the 
Scriptures. The number of Bible Societies, in connec¬ 
tion with the Hibernian Society, rose from eight to 
thirty-five, and the number of Bibles and Testaments 
issued was 40,000. What had been the previous need 
of the Scriptures, may be gathered from the following 
anecdote:— 


270 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


“ A young man, bred a Catholic, having learned to 
read, and a New Testament happening to Tie neglected 
in his master’s house, it became the constant companion 
of his leisure hours. His apprenticeship to his master, a 
linen-weaver, being finished, he begged the New Testa¬ 
ment as a reward for his faithful services. The master, 
refused to give it to him, unless he served six months 
longer. The young man, thinking that a New Testa¬ 
ment might be obtained on easier terms, at Castlebar, 
declined this, and made diligent inquiry at all the shops 
to find one. Alas! not a Testament was for sale at that 
time in the principal town of a populous county in Ire¬ 
land ! He could not live without it; it was never absent 
from his thoughts; he dreamed of nothing else; and, 
finding no rest, he returned to his master, and agreed to 
serve him for the Testament six months more.” A gen¬ 
tleman of respectability in Ireland vouches for this as a 
fact, in a letter dated 24th December, 1811. He adds 
that “ the young man became, and continues, a steadfast 
and exemplary Protestant.” 

In 1812, the Bible Society sent 1525 Bibles and Testa¬ 
ments to Londonderry, to be sold at half their cost. A 
correspondent says, “ The times are trying to the poor; 
yet many who come to Derry market, to buy food for 
their children, came to my house, and said in my hear¬ 
ing, ‘ We will buy a little less meal, and take home the 
word of God with us, as we may never get Testaments 
for 7 d. each again.’ Several of the common beggars 
bought Testaments with the halfpence they begged in 
the streets. About 200 of these books have been sold to 
Roman Catholics. Do not leave me to the chiding of 
the people, without a fresh supply: 1525 more will not 
last me a month. Oh! may God bless his word every¬ 
where, and abundantly reward the work of faith and 
labour of love of the British and Foreign Bible Society!” 

In 1815, it was stated that the Irish had manifested 
an increased anxiety to read the Scriptures in their na- 


IRELAND. 271 

tive tongue; and the committee determined to print an 
edition of the whole Bible in the Irish language. 

In 1821, it was said, “ Seven counties in Ireland yet 
remain strangers to the beneficent labours of the Bible 
Society, and eight more are but partially supplied; so 
that in the greater proportion of fifteen counties, the in¬ 
fluence of the Society is not yet experienced. Still much 
was doing in Ireland.” “ The ladies of Dublin,” say the 
Parent committee, “were the first agents in this kingdom, 
who, nobly casting away all apprehension, and commit¬ 
ting themselves to the protection of Almighty God, made 
the experiment of female influence in disseminating the 
word of God among the poor; and,” it is added, “in their 
very great success they have already enjoyed more than 
a compensation for all their sacrifices, and their example 
has not been lost to the country.” 

In the Reports of the Hibernian Bible Society for 1827, 
it was said, “We are now given to see, as it were, the 
fruits of the labour bestowed for many years past upon 
this country. May God grant that it may prove to be 
the first-fruits of an abundant harvest! The circulation 
of Bibles here, this year, is 40,000 copies.”* This Report 
also mentions, that, on occasion of some recent discussions 
on religious subjects, which took place in Ireland, scholars 
were in the habit of borrowing, night after night, every 
Bible in their schools, in order that their parents and 
friends might compare one passage of Scripture with 
another;—such Bibles being invariably returned on the 
following morning. 

* We have much pleasure in stating that a society, in Dublin, 
called “ The Association for Discountenancing Vice, and Promoting 
the Knowledge and Practice of the Christian Religion,” had circu¬ 
lated, between the years 1794 and 1806, not less than 23,925 Bibles, 
and 36,608 Testaments, at a cost of 4767 1 . 


272 


CHAPTER IV. 

THE BIBLE SOCIETY IN HOLLAND.-PRAYER FOR BIBLE SOCIETIES. 

—GERMANY.—ITS RELIGIOUS STATE PREVIOUS TO THE EXISTENCE 

OF THE BIBLE SOCIETY. -DR. SCHWABE’s TOUR. —MR. OWEN’S 

LETTERS.-PRUSSIA.-ROYAL PATRONAGE.-SWITZERLAND. — 

ANTISTES HESS.- DR. STEINKOPFF’s REPORT.-LAUSANNE BIBLE 

SOCIETY. — SWEDEN. — NORWAY.-ICELAND.-MR. HENDERSON’S 

LETTERS.-DENMARK.-THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 

HOLLAND. 

We have now to pass on to the continent, and there ob¬ 
serve what had been the labours of Mr. Owen and those 
of his coadjutors, among the nations of Europe, and their 
correspondence with the world in general, during the 
first five-and-twenty years of the existence of the Bible 
Society, taking first, as we have proposed, the Protestant 
countries. 

The Parent committee in their tenth Report announced 
that a Bible Society had been formed at Amsterdam, 
for the purpose of supplying the Holy Scriptures, in 
English, to the British churches in Holland, and of 
promoting the establishment of a Dutch Bible Society, 
which might furnish the Scriptures to the poor of the 
Netherlands in their own language, and circulate the 
same to all nations. The Prince of Orange became the 
patron of the English Bible Society in Holland, and its 
directors consisted of Englishmen and Dutchmen of the 
first respectability. The British and Foreign Bible So¬ 
ciety offered to this newly-formed Society a grant of 500 
Bibles and 1000 Testaments, and promised the sum of 
500/., as a donation, on the establishment of a National 


HOLLAND.—THE NETHERLANDS. 


273 


Bible Society. When the committee’s correspondent men¬ 
tioned this liberal offer, in the presence of three of the 
wealthiest citizens of Amsterdam, one of them shed tears, 
another seemed overcome with astonishment, and the third 
exclaimed, “ The English are a pattern to all nations! ” 

Rotterdam, the Hague, and other cities of the United 
Netherlands, soon afterwards became the seats of zealous 
auxiliaries. Thirty-two Bible Associations were formed 
in the city of Amsterdam and its suburbs. 

The Bible Society had issued an edition of 5000 copies 
of the Dutch New Testament in 1809, chiefly for the use 
of prisoners of war in England. Considerable numbers 
of the copies were afterwards forwarded to the Cape of 
Good Hope, and were most thankfully received; for it 
was ascertained that not a single Dutch Bible could be 
obtained for money throughout that extensive colony. 
On receipt of this intelligence, the Society immediately 
commenced a large edition of the entire Dutch Bible. 

In 1819, in the town of Hoorn, in Holland, scarcely 
a single servant could be found without the Scriptures: 
350 Bibles had been placed in the workhouse; and the 
large halls of that institution, formerly filled with dis¬ 
graceful mobs z now resounded with hymns of praise. 

The Society at Rotterdam had upwards of 1000 mem¬ 
bers. Sunday-schools promoted Scripture-reading, and a 
Bible was reckoned the highest reward for diligent scho¬ 
lars. Schoolmasters in Zigp were ordered not to let a 
day pass without reading a chapter to the children, “ for 
the Bible places everyone in the sphere where he ought to 
be: it is in itself the best rule, the most faithful counsellor, 
and the safest refuge.” 

In the Netherlands, in 1820, a certain day in October 
was appointed, throughout the whole kingdom, to offer 
up, at six o’clock in the evening, prayers and supplications 
to God for the success of the circulation of the Bible. 

In 1821, the Dutch Society furnished with the Scrip¬ 
tures all the sufferers by a dreadful inundation that oc- 

19 


274 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


curred in the country; and a very active Marine Bible 
Society was formed for the benefit of persons engaged 
in the shipping. They also undertook a version of the 
New Testament for Java, and a Malay version for Am- 
boyna, in both which the Society afforded them aid. 

“ Let us therefore,” say they, “ continue to communi¬ 
cate the Bible to all classes of people, without exception. 
The heavenly comfort it contains will not be felt and 
valued more in palaces than under the thatched roofs of 
cottages. The Bible is indeed a Divine legacy to the whole 
human race.” (May, 1822.) 

GERMANY. 

During the war, correspondence was opened in different 
parts of Germany, to ascertain the want of the Holy Scrip¬ 
tures, particularly among Protestants; and through the 
untiring labours of the Foreign secretary, Dr. Steinkopff, 
the Society commenced its operations in various quarters. 
The numerous calls from the poor for the Scriptures were 
met by grants of money and Bibles from England, to the 
amount of 2712/. New editions of the German Bible 
were likewise undertaken at Basle and Berlin. 

The religious state of Germany, when the Society’s 
agents first entered it, was that of almost universal apostasy 
from the saving doctrines of the gospel of Christ, even in 
the Protestant German churches. Rationalism had taken 
the place of Divine Revelation. Her professors of theo¬ 
logy and her doctors of divinity were, alas! the propaga¬ 
tors of that infidelity which, for three generations, had 
filled her pulpits and her schools with error: they had 
poisoned the literature of the nation at its source, and 
altered the very hymns and catechisms of the reformers. 

Then it was that the agents of the Bible Society began 
to spread the word of God, without note or comment, as 
tne most powerful of all means for stemming this tide of 
neoiogy. The remnant of pious Christians, who had not 


GERMANY.—DR. SCHWABE’S TOUR. 


275 


bowed the knee before the Baal of the times, gladly wel¬ 
comed them, and willingly joined in the work; but the 
indifference prevailing among all classes on the subject of 
religion was a great obstacle to the spread of the Scrip¬ 
tures ; the churches were nearly empty in all parts of the 
country; and it was no easy matter to persuade the people 
to purchase and read even the Bible! 

Bible Societies in Germany being established from this 
time, we hear of more frequent inquiry among the poor, 
for the German Scriptures, than had hitherto been known 
to exist. Meanwhile, the various German committees 
were assisted with frequent grants of money, and the poor 
exiles from Hamburg, and the sufferers by war, in different 
parts of the country, were supplied with copies of the 
Scriptures, which were most thankfully received. 

The Rev. Dr. Schwabe, who made a tour of inquiry 
for the Society, on the continent, often along the track 
of country through which the retreating and pursuing 
. armies had passed, describes the ruined villages, the lost 
Bibles, the scattered schools, the churches even left with¬ 
out the Scriptures necessary to the performance of Divine 
worship. He established a Bible Society at Erfurt, his 
native town, and the locality of Luther’s monastery, once 
well supplied with Bibles, but where the destitution was 
then great. Among the mines of Salfeld, children came 
to bring him, with tears of joy, the whole little treasure 
they had gained by picking ore, in exchange for a Bible. 

Among the silver-mines at Freyberg, among the orphan 
children at Dresden, and in many other towns and vil¬ 
lages, this agent dispensed the bounty of the Society. A 
great part of the ground over which he passed had not 
before been visited by any Bible-agent; and through evi¬ 
dences like these of the sympathy of Great Britain with 
this suffering country, Germany learned to view her with 
no less admiration when holding out the palm and the 
olive-branch, than when girt with the sword of war. and 
striking terror into the hearts of her enemies. 


276 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Attached to the fifteenth Report of the Bible Society, 
are a series of letters received from the Rev. John Owen, 
while on a tour on the continent, which was undertaken 
partly with a view of restoring his failing health. During 
his journey, he greatly aided the interests of the Society, 
to which, “ living and dying, he was unalterably devoted.” 
He travelled in the times when it took two days and a 
half to get from Calais to Paris, where he visited Pro¬ 
fessor Kieffer, in his study,—finding him engaged in the 
revision of the Turkish New Testament, collating it with 
Greek, English, German, French, Tartar, Arabic, and 
Persian. Mr. Owen also paid a visit to one “ who laid 
hold,” as he says, “on his warmest affections,”—to Pastor 
Oberlin, and his Ban de la Roche. Two of his letters are 
dated from Basle in Switzerland, which he calls “ the fa¬ 
voured asylum of sound learning, evangelical piety, and 
Christian friendship.” He offered to their Bible Society 
a contribution from London of 500/., to assist them in 
printing the quarto German Bible, and presided at a meet¬ 
ing, at which were present the great and good men of the 
city, with Dr. Pinkerton and the Rev. Mr. Blumhardt, who 
gave an account of their tours in Germany and Holland. 

The German Bible Societies continually increased in 
number, and were favoured with much .royal patronage; 
yet still the supply of the Scriptures was not equal to 
the demand, in many parts of impoverished Germany. 
The president of the Giessen Society laments that, in ten 
villages, an entire copy of the Bible is rarely to be seen. 
The gratitude evinced for the gift of the Scriptures is 
seldom shown more earnestly than it was by a poor Ger¬ 
man workman, who had been presented at the anniver¬ 
sary of the Neuweid Society with a Bible, and brought 
fifteen silver groschen to the clergyman whose ministry 
he attended, saying it was his “ little all,” but that he felt 
bound to offer it to the Bible Society, in gratitude for 
that excellent Book which he had received from it the 
year before. 


THE PRUSSIAN BIBLE SOCIETY. 


277 


PRUSSIA. 

The Prussian Bible Society was established in August, 
1814. “ The first clergyman in the city, Probst Hanstein, 
rose with a Bible in his right hand, and represented with 
striking eloquence the floods of infidelity and wickedness, 
the ravages of war, and the general misery under which 
the Prussians had suffered for so many years, and pointed 
out, as the source of all those sins and sorrows, the dis¬ 
respect and contempt which had been poured upon that 
best of all books—the Bible.” 

This account is contained in a letter from the Rev. Dr. 
Pinkerton, who, with Messrs. Paterson and Henderson, 
had been introduced to the Bible Society, in the year 
1812, and had proved its invaluable foreign agents. All 
three were natives of Scotland. 

The introduction of the Scriptures into the schools of 
Prussia was effected by a decree promulgated by Frederick 
William III., the first German sovereign who became the 
patron of Bible Societies. 

In 1817, the Prussian Bible Society continued diligently 
and successfully to pursue its course. Twenty auxiliaries 
were added to it before the expiration of its second year, 
and one of these had seven branches! 

The British and Foreign Bible Society offered to its 
members a grant of 500/. They were engaged in printing 
the German Bible, Luther’s version, and also an edition 
of the Scriptures in the dialect of the Wends, in Lusatia, 
which the Prussian secretary said was “ one of the most 
useful works ever undertaken.” Though the higher 
classes in the country speak German, the lower speak 
Wendish. They are a people who have a particular ob¬ 
jection to the Bible without the Apocrypha, and are 
remarkable for their indifference to the New Testament, 
when printed alone. 

The London committee observed, with admiration and 


278 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


gratitude, the steady march by which the Prussian Society 
advanced towards the attainment of its object. For much 
of its success it was indebted, under the blessing of God, 
to the warm and decided encouragement which it received 
from his Prussian majesty, and several branches of the 
royal family, besides the personal co-operation of minis¬ 
ters of state, dignified clergy, and numerous persons of 
property and influence. 

The Bible Society has never especially courted royal 
patronage; it can do without it: but when we consider 
its object—the circulation of the word of Him “ by whom 
kings reign, and princes decree justice,”—it is meet that 
crowned heads should cast into its treasury, and that it 
should comprise, within its vast constituency, alike the 
hearts of kings and of peasants. 

In 1821, Dr. Steinkopff, in a tour, attended the anni¬ 
versary of the Prussian Bible Society, which had then 
translated the Bible into five languages. The number 
of auxiliaries was thirty-eight, and it had distributed 
50,000 Bibles and 33,000 Testaments. His majesty the 
King of Prussia had declared to the Bishop of Potsdam, 
that he rejoiced to support Bible Societies in his domi¬ 
nions, because he considered them one of the most peace¬ 
ful and efficacious means of cherishing a spirit of order 
and piety among his people. 

SWITZERLAND. 

From a very early period, the objects of the Bible 
Society had met with a warm sympathy in Switzerland: 
kindred institutions rapidly sprang up in all its principal 
cantons and cities, and the Scriptures were making silent 
but effectual progress, even amidst the confusion and dis¬ 
asters occasioned by a desolating war. The Zurich and 
the St. Gall Bible Societies were diligent and liberal in 
their distributions. 

The Rev. Antistes Hess, senior of the Zurich clergy, 


SWITZERLAND.—ANTISTES HESS. 


279 


wrote, in 1815, a letter to Lord Teignmouth, in which, 
after alluding to the work of the Bible Society, “ as 
promoting the increase of the invisible Church of Christ, 
which is limited by no boundaries of countries, or na¬ 
tional dissimilitudes, or peculiarity of form and ritual,” 
he says, “ Permit an old man to speak also a little of 
himself.' I have, from my very youth up, had a great 
desire to visit two countries, in preference to all others, 
viz., Palestine and Britain;—Palestine, on account of 
its having been the scene of the miracles of our Lord; 
and Britain, on account of its inhabitants, who have ren¬ 
dered themselves so illustrious in the cause of the Bible : 
yet 1 have not been permitted to see either. In some 
measure, however, I have obtained my desire, partly by 
correspondence, but particularly, as regards England, by 
reading the most interesting works written by your 
countrymen, and of which I have a select library.” 

A correspondent of the Bible Society, at Lausanne, 
says: “The plan of the British and Foreign Bible Society 
was first imperfectly developed to me, at an annual 
meeting of the clergy of Geneva; and being struck with 
its high importance and noble aims, I was anxious 
that my country also should participate in its benefits. 
An English lady, who was well acquainted with its plan, 
progress, and principles, soon afterwards presented me 
with ten of its Annual Keports, and, with an English 
guinea, laid the foundation-stone of our Society. We 
have now distributed 227 Bibles and 271 Testaments. A 
minister of one of our villages thus writes: ‘We do 
indeed require a Bible Society in the canton de Vaud. 
Since that excellent law has fallen into disuse, which com¬ 
pelled every couple to produce their Bible at the altar, 
many families are without it in the villages of the Jura, 
where they no longer read the Scriptures even on the 
Lord’s-day, or during the violent storms, as was once the 
custom. In many ancient families they used to sanctify 
the hour of dinner, on the Sabbath, by reading the word 


280 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


of God: this was done by the youngest member of the 
family, who always dined first. This habit has been 
neglected really for want of books.’ ” 

Another correspondent thus writes: “ I was singularly 
struck with your idea of introducing young children to 
assist in founding the Bible Society. It is for two young 
orphans that I desire this favour,—Jeanne Isaline Zink, 
and Jean Louis Zink. On offering each the moderate 
sum of 2s. 6J., may they be admitted into your honour¬ 
able Society ?—and I will take care to instil into their 
minds, that, having been received in the years of weak¬ 
ness and infancy, they are bound to devote to its service 
those of maturity and strength.” 

The Report of the Lausanne Bible Society, in 1824, 
states, that it was one of the chief designs of the original 
founder, that, in a canton containing a population of 
160,000 inhabitants, not a single family should be un¬ 
provided with the sacred Scriptures; but though, since 
1815, upwards of 6000 Bibles and far more New Testa¬ 
ments have been circulated, the design is still far from 
being accomplished. 


SWEDEN. 

Mr. Paterson found, in Sweden, a destitution of the 
Scriptures truly mournful. In 1812, it was calculated 
there might possibly be a copy of the Scriptures among 
every eighty-one persons. The Swedish Bible Society 
was then formed, and was assisted, like the others, by the 
British and Foreign Bible Society. This produced such 
gratitude in the breasts of the people, that when, in the 
above year, Sweden had been forced to make peace with 
France, and to declare war against England, and the 
usual war-prayer was read in all their churches, the 
people inquired who were their enemies; and being in¬ 
formed that the English were intended, u No! no! ” ex¬ 
claimed they ; “ the English are not our enemies! They 


SWEDEN. 


281 


are our best friends; they sent us corn to sow our land 
when we had consumed all our reserve ; they sent us 
medicine and blankets for our sick and wounded; and 
now, more than all, they have sent us the Bible!” They 
said they could not use that war-prayer, and it was dis¬ 
continued accordingly. 

At the commencement of the present century, the re¬ 
ligious condition of Sweden, as well as of other countries, 
had been at a low ebb, owing to the system of philosophy 
prevalent at the time. The reading of the sacred Scrip¬ 
tures was generally neglected, for the few who possessed 
the treasure held it in contempt, and it was comparatively 
scarce among the mass of the people. It was an ex¬ 
pensive book, and few could afford to buy it; added to 
which, the teachers of religion declared that the common 
people had no need of it, and that it would do them more 
harm than good. 

Mr. Paterson met with many difficulties, but he suc¬ 
ceeded so far as to form an Evangelical Society, whose 
immediate object it was to publish religious tracts. The 
Swedish Bible Society was established in the year 1814, 
and the number of Bibles it issued soon proved that the 
gloomy forebodings expressed with regard to the circula¬ 
tion of the Bible, unaccompanied with the apocryphal 
books, were without foundation. 

In 1818, the committee of the Swedish Bible Society 
say : “A name which we have all learned to reverence, 
is that of the British and Foreign Bible Society ,—the 
Parent Society of every Bible Institution throughout the 
world. We have this year received from them 3001. 
and powerful aid in support of our auxiliary societies. 
We have, therefore, been enabled this year to publish 
13,000 Bibles and 5000 Testaments, making 160,000 
Bibles and Testaments, since the commencement of the 
Society.” 

In 1824, there is an account of Bibles distributed, 
greater than in any preceding year. The Hernosand 


282 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Ladies’ Bible Society, the first of the kind instituted 
in Sweden, continued its progress with uninterrupted 
success. 

The president of the Stockholm Society, Count Rosen- 
blad, spoke much to Dr. Pinkerton of the “ pleasing 
effect that had already resulted from the labours of the 
Swedish Bible Society, and the great change that had 
taken place in many minds in favour of the sacred writ¬ 
ings and of Christianity,—the voice of infidelity being less 
frequently heard both in public and in private circles.” 
He adds : “I conceive the present to be a serious crisis, 
which will perhaps determine, for centuries, the moral 
state of mankind. God is abundantly sowing the good 
seed, but the enemy is no less active in sowing tares. 
Had not Bible Societies been established, through the 
merciful providence of God, to counteract the evils of 
ignorance and infidelity, to what a state of degradation 
must the world have sunk at this moment! ” 

NORWAY. 

A grant of the holy Scriptures was made to the poor 
of Norway, by the British and Foreign Bible Society, in 
1812 ; but the example set in Sweden soon extended 
itself to the sister kingdom of Norway, under the liberal 
patronage of the crown prince, from whom it received a 
munificent donation. The foundation of the Norwegian 
Bible Society was laid in 1816 . Support was speedily 
and regularly furnished by the committee in London, up 
to the year 1828 , when, in consequence of the decision 
of the British and Foreign Bible Society not to assist in 
the circulation of the Apocrypha, the Norwegian Society 
commenced an independent agency of its own. Pre¬ 
viously to this, however, large numbers of copies of the 
Scriptures had been circulated, and measures adopted for 
the translation of the New Testament into the Norwegian- 
Lapponese dialect. 


ICELAND.—STATE OP EDUCATION THERE. 283 


ICELAND. 

But we must now turn to this large and interesting 
island of the North Atlantic Ocean, crossed by its ridges 
of rugged mountains, with its population scattered on the 
banks of the fiords or inlets of the sea, which run up 
towards the glaciers of the interior. Iceland contains an 
area of 30,000 square miles. It is divided into 305 
parishes, and its centre is a dreary desert, through which 
one may travel far, without meeting any trace of human 
existence. You have heard, perhaps, of its magnificent 
glaciers, its boiling springs, its burning mountain, and 
its forests of a former age. The Icelanders are the 
genuine descendants of the old Norsemen, and their 
language is still pure as they imported it from Norway, 
in the ninth century. 

About the year 1057, Isleif, the bishop of Skalholt, 
introduced among them the art of writing, at the same 
time with the Latin language. The feats of their ances¬ 
tors were recorded in songs, like those of the Druids; 
their historical compositions were called “ sagas,” and 
literature was cultivated as soon as they acquired the art 
of writing. The corrupted Christianity of the times was 
established in Iceland, in A. D. 1000. In 1529, the art 
of printing was introduced, and in 1550, the Lutheran 
Reformation reached these frozen shores, which led to 
the overthrow of the convents, and the loss of many 
valuable national manuscripts. 

Elementary education, with a certain degree of supe¬ 
rior information, is very generally spread among the Ice¬ 
landers. Children are educated by 'their parents, with 
the assistance of the parish clergyman; and, owing to 
their unchanged language, the humblest peasant can read 
and understand the most ancient written documents on 
the island. In the “Young Edda,” a composition of the 
eleventh century, it is said of the Anglo-Saxons and the 


284 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Icelanders, “ Wer erum einnar tunguf “ We are of one 
tongue.” 

Oddur, the son of a bishop of Holum, in Iceland, was 
educated in Norway, and shared in the sensation which 
the doctrines of the Reformation produced through the 
north of Europe. 

We are .told that for three nights, on his knees, he 
besought the “ Father of lights” to open the eyes of his 
understanding, and show him whether the principles of 
Rome, or of Luther, were from heaven; and afterwards 
repairing to Germany, he attended the lectures of Luther 
and Melancthon. On his return to Iceland, he entered 
upon a translation of the Scriptures; and, to avoid perse¬ 
cution, he commenced his important labours in a small 
cell in a cow-house. He completed a version of the New 
Testament, in 1539; but, finding it impossible, from the 
force of public opinion, to print it in Iceland, he sailed 
for Denmark, and published it under the patronage of 
King Christian III. He also translated and printed the 
53rd chapter of Isaiah. The entire Bible was not printed 
in Iceland till 1584, and Oddur’s translation of the New 
Testament was adopted in this version. 

This edition consisted of 1000 copies, and has been 
called “ a faithful mirror of Luther’s German version.” 
Five editions of the Icelandic Bible were published after 
this, some of them of 2000 copies each, and the latest in 
the year 1750. Still, in the year 1806, the following is 
the report of the scarcity of the Scriptures:— 

At this period, the Rev. E. Henderson and the Rev. J. 
Paterson, who had devoted themselves to the mission- 
field of India, visited Copenhagen, with a view to obtain 
a passage to Tranquebar. Disappointed in doing this, 
their attention, during their stay in Denmark, was directed 
to Iceland, whose population, consisting of 46,000 persons 
able to read , almost without exception, had, however, 
among them but forty or fifty Bibles,—for the only print¬ 
ing-press in the island was out of repair; and yet no 


THANKFUL RECEPTION OF SOCIETY’S GRANT. 285 

people in the world were more fond of reading. As they 
could not, however, print books, they recurred to the 
older fashion of transcribing them, and the Scriptures 
were no longer to be obtained for money. These affect¬ 
ing particulars touched the hearts of those excellent men 
with compassion for the people of this island, and they 
made an earnest appeal on their behalf to their friends in 
Scotland, who conveyed the intelligence to the committee 
of the Bible Society, in London. Lord Teignmouth, the 
president, then wrote a letter to the Bishop of Iceland, to 
the following effect. 

After informing him that the Society had then been 
established only two years, but that it had been the means 
already of circulating the Holy Scriptures to a great ex¬ 
tent upon the continent, he says that “ it would have felt 
much gratification immediately to be able to supply the 
wants of Iceland; but Icelandic Bibles can neither be 
printed nor procured in England. We therefore adopt 
the only means in our power, and offer to contribute one 
half of the expense of printing an edition of 5000 copies 
of the New Testament, and we shall have great pleasure 
in learning that the offer is accepted by the bishop and 
clergy of Iceland.” 

To this letter came an earnest and thankful response, 
stating, that the grant was truly welcome, that the best 
farmers in the parishes had warmly contended which of 
them should have the loan of the one Bible, which was 
sent to their parish, for themselves and their children. 

These Testaments were then printed at Fuhnen, in 
Denmark, and 1500 dispatched to different parts of Ice¬ 
land, in the spring of 1807. The war between England 
and Denmark prevented the transmission of the remain¬ 
ing copies, and it was thought that they would have been 
destroyed in the bombardment of Copenhagen, yet they 
were preserved when almost everything around them was 
laid in ashes. Two bombs entered the warehouse where 
they were lying, and it was nearly burnt to the ground,— 


286 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


“ that part only having escaped the flames in which these 
Scriptures were deposited! ” 

In the year 1815, another edition of 5000 entire Bibles 
and 5000 extra Testaments left the press, for Iceland, 
under the Rev. E. Henderson’s superintendence, who 
then followed to witness their distribution. He writes, 
on his voyage thither, with a heart filled with joy, “ Our 
vessel is freighted with corn for the needy inhabitants of 
Iceland, and also with the bread of life,—the glorious gos¬ 
pel of the blessed God.” His reception was most gratify¬ 
ing to himself, and to the Society which he represented. 

Mr. Henderson spent nearly two months in perilous 
journeys into the interior. Wherever he went, he was 
welcomed with enthusiasm, and scarcely left a place with¬ 
out being followed by the benedictions of the inhabitants. 
The ardour of the people to obtain a copy of the Holy 
Scriptures was excessive;—they really “hungered and 
thirsted” after the word of God. Mr. H. says: “ From 
all that I have been able to learn, there are more marks 
of religious disposition directed towards the proper Object 
of worship among the Icelanders, taking them as a body, 
than among any other people in Europe.” In the appen¬ 
dix to the eleventh Report are contained Mr. Henderson’s 
most interesting letters, while on this journey. He left 
a copy of the Bible here and there, as he went along, 
and announced the coming large supply. The Bibles 
were to be sold at the reduced price, viz., 45., and the 
Testaments at 15. 3d. At this time there was only a post 
to Iceland twice a-year, but for the Bibles there was to 
be a post on purpose. At the house of the Dean of Ice¬ 
land, he saw a Bible of the former days: it was a folio 
edition, nearly devoured by the tooth of time, but the 
defective pages had been all neatly pasted in, and the 
text supplied in the most accurate manner in a hand¬ 
writing which would have done honour to any school¬ 
master in Europe. It was the work of a common peasant. 

Mr. Henderson underwent many perils on this journey. 


MR. HENDERSON’S TOUR.—DENMARK. 287 

He forded on horseback upwards of sixty rivers, flow¬ 
ing cold from the snow and ice mountains, which are 
reckoned very dangerous. He travelled for five succes¬ 
sive days without seeing any of the habitations of men. 
The road was cheerless and gloomy, with scarcely a 
tuft of grass to relieve the eye, or the note of a bird 
to charm the ear; but he had a delightful companion in 
a Danish officer, and he was carrying the lamp of life to 
those who longed for its light. He descended from the 
mountains into the beautiful valley of Eyafiord, and 
in that neighbourhood fell in with a clergyman who 
had been seeking in vain to obtain a Bible for the long 
period of seventeen years! He passed through a parish in 
which there were only two Bibles, and another in which 
there were none at all! It was then fifty years since the 
last supply of Bibles had arrived in Iceland! “ Wherever 
I have come,” says he, “ I have been welcomed as an 
angel from heaven. The people often asked me whether 
old King George had sent them the Bibles; and when 1 
told them of the Bible Society, and the spirit it was dif¬ 
fusing in every quarter of the world, ‘ It is the word of 
God,’ was the reply they frequently gave; and they often 
quoted some passage relative to the diffusion of the know¬ 
ledge of the Lord in the latter day.” 

An Icelandic Bible Society was instituted in 1815; and 
in 1823, the dean reported, “ It is a well-founded opinion, 
that every family throughout this island is now in pos¬ 
session of a Bible or Testament, and many have more 
than one copy. The sacred volume is read with diligence 
during the long winter evenings.” 

It is with difficulty that we cease to quote from the 
religious annals of this interesting people, but we must 
pass on to— 

DENMARK. 

In August, 1812, the king of Denmark granted per¬ 
mission to the Rev. E. Henderson to reside at Copenha- 


288 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


gen, for the purpose of completing the Icelandic Bible; 
and not the least valuable privilege allowed him was 
that of an unrestricted correspondence,—an extraordinary 
concession to the subject of a nation with whom his 
Danish majesty was at that time at war! The result of 
this permitted residence was the foundation of a Bible 
Society in Copenhagen, under the royal sanction, on the 
22nd of May, 1814. 

The wide-spread principles of infidelity presented, at 
the outset, the most formidable discouragements: but 
success came by perseverance. Prince Christian of Den¬ 
mark paid a visit, in 1823, to the committee of the 
British and Foreign Bible Society, in Earl Street, and 
attended with marked interest to their proceedings. We 
shall have more to say of Denmark, when reviewing the 
proceedings of its Bible Society from the Jubilee-field, in 
1853; but we must now leave the Protestant countries of 
Europe, which are said to comprise altogether a popula¬ 
tion of fifty-five millions, and pass over the ocean to— 

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 

The first Society established in the States of this great 
republic was that of Philadelphia, which dates from the 
year 1809. This Society ascribed its formation to the 
example and influence of the British and Foreign Bible 
Society, which Institution immediately voted the sum of 
200/. to this transatlantic auxiliary, whose fibres quickly 
took root, like those of the original tree, in several other 
principal states of the Union, to each of which was trans¬ 
mitted the usual token of friendly interest, in a donation 
of 100/. 

The case of the colonists, also, in the North-American 
possessions of Great Britain, soon attracted the attention 
of the committee, and grants were freely sent out to 
meet their wants, in the French, Gaelic, and English 
languages. 


THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 


289 


It was for some of the aboriginal tribes of this district 
that the Society’s funds were first applied towards print¬ 
ing the Scriptures in a foreign tongue, viz., Captain 
Norton’s translation of the Gospel of John into the Mo¬ 
hawk language. But as America is not a country or a 
province,—as she is, in fact, half the world,—she has 
records of her own, too many to be even noticed here. 
In 1817, America had 149 Bible Societies scattered over 
her continent, 130 of which were in the United States 
alone; and the American Bible Society has ever since 
continued to extend the scale of its operations by the 
enlargement of its funds, the increase of its issues of 
Bibles, and the multiplication of its auxiliaries. Many 
delightful reports of her proceedings does this noble 
daughter transmit to her mother across the waves of the 
Atlantic; and ere long you shall listen to what she said 
at our Jubilee. She bids fair to evangelise her own vast 
continents, and also to be our most glorious ally in 
spreading the light of God’s word over the Old World. 

We have little space to notice, in detail, the West-In- 
dian colonies of the Protestant nations: they have always 
had the warm sympathy of the Society, and grants were 
made in very early years to many of them. The Barba- 
does Auxiliary was instituted in 1817, under the auspices 
of Lord Combermere, for the benefit of the negroes, who 
received the Scriptures with much gratitude. Six years 
after the foundation of this auxiliary, there were 1000 
children in Bridge-town under religious instruction. 

It would be in vain to attempt to enter fully into the 
state of each separate island at this period. Associations 
were instituted in almost every one of any magnitude; 
and those belonging to the Danish crown received large 
and continuous grants, which were conveyed through the 
devoted Moravian missionaries. No case of attested want 
of the Scriptures was addressed to the committee, with¬ 
out finding a ready ear. 



290 THE BOOK. AND ITS STORY. 

We shall here close our review of the preliminary 
work of the Bible Society, in the Protestant kingdoms of 
the world, and must reserve, for another chapter, its pro¬ 
ceedings during the same twenty-five years, in still darker 
regions, and in the remaining four divisions of the earth’s 
population. 


CHAPTER V. 

THE JEWS, AFTER THEIR DISPERSION, IN ROME, SPAIN, PORTUGAL, 
FRANCE, GERMANY, TURKEY, AND ENGLAND. — THEIR SUFFERINGS, 

AND THE REMISSION OF THESE.-THEIR NUMBERS ALL OVER THE 

WORLD.-WHAT THE SOCIETY DID FOR THEM IN ITS FIRST TWENTY- 

FIVE YEARS.-LETTERS OF DR. PINKERTON FROM RUSSIA.-JEWS 

AT THESSALONICA AND CONSTANTINOPLE.-JEWISH CONVERTS.- 

THE SOCIETY’S WORK AMONG THE SYRIAN CHRISTIANS, IN THE 

ARMENIAN CHURCH, IN THE NESTORIAN, AND IN THE ABYSSINIAN.- 

LETTERS FROM MR. PEARCE.-GRANTS TO THE VAUDOIS CHURCH.— 

ITS GRATITUDE. 

We have now to examine what was the work of the 
British and Foreign Bible Society among the Jews, and 
the remnants of the ancient Christian Churches during 
the first twenty-five years of its existence. 

We shall take a distinct but rapid glance at the Jewish 
nation, in its long term of exile, to whom we have not 
referred since the period of the destruction of Jerusalem. 

The dispersion of the Jews over the world, which is 
commonly dated from the destruction of Jerusalem, had 
in reality begun long before. The Ptolemies had formed 
large colonies of them in Egypt; and in the time of Cicero, 
B.c. 63, there was a wealthy Jewish community in Italy. 



THE JEWS AFTER THEIR DISPERSION. 291 


Pliilo enumerates the countries in which they were settled 
in the time of Caligula, a.d. 37, viz., in Syria, and in all 
parts of Asia Minor and Greece; and after the captivity 
of Babylon many Jews remained in Mesopotamia. 

In 131, A.D. the Emperor Adrian slew 580,000 of them 
in battle, and issued a harsh edict against the rest; but 
this being allowed to lie dormant under succeeding empe¬ 
rors, they erected new synagogues, opened schools, and 
acquired considerable wealth. During this period the 
“Mishna” and “Gemara,”—their books of tradition,— 
were composed. 

Constantine called them “ the most hateful of all 
nations,” and made several prohibitory laws concerning 
them. Adrian had forbidden them to approach the walls 
of Jerusalem; and these harsh laws caused insurrection 
in Judea, and tumult in Alexandria. 

Julian the Apostate favoured them, and attempted to 
disprove the Christian prophecy, that their temple should 
not be rebuilt; but his work was miraculously destroyed 
as fast as it was completed. 

The Gothic kings of Italy protected the Jews, who 
had at that time the slave-trade of Europe chiefly in their 
hands. 

The Emperor Justinian was one of those who enacted 
very cruel and oppressive laws against them. He re¬ 
jected their testimony in courts of law, cut them off from 
all offices of dignity in the state, debarred them from 
authority even over their own children, and prevented 
them from bequeathing their property unless to Christians. 
This persecution, which was chiefly directed against the 
Samaritan Jews, almost extinguished that once flourish¬ 
ing community; and in subsequent history they no longer 
appear as a separate people. 

The rise of Mahomedanism brought an unfavourable 
change to the Eastern Jews. Mahomet endeavoured at 
first to win them over; but as they would not acknow¬ 
ledge a descendant of Hagar, the bond-woman, as the 


292 


THE BOOK AND ITS STOUT. 


greatest of prophets, Mahomet revenged himself upon 
them without mercy, in Arabia, where they were very 
numerous. The caliphs were afterwards more favourable 
to them; and the Jews, following them in their tide of 
conquest along the coast of Northern Africa, contributed 
also materially to the triumphs of the crescent in Spain. 

In Spain, under the Gothic kings, this people experi¬ 
enced the first of those sweeping proscriptions which they 
were doomed to suffer in every country of Christian 
Europe. They were commanded even to forsake their 
religion, or leave the country. Lashes, chains, and muti¬ 
lation, with the surrender of all their property, were the 
punishment of all who would observe Jewish rites, on the 
old principle of compelling men to believe by force : this 
was in a.d. 653. In Moorish Spain, the Jews had after¬ 
wards a golden age, which lasted for centuries. There 
they cultivated science and learning; and the names of 
Benjamin of Tudela, and Isaac of Cordova, attest their 
proficiency. It was in Spain and Portugal, after the ex¬ 
pulsion of the Moors, that the Jews suffered most. The 
Inquisition undertook the task of punishing relapsed con¬ 
verts among them, and finally expelled them from Spain, 
to the number of half a million. Soon afterwards, they 
were driven away from Portugal, under circumstances of 
still greater barbarity. The expulsion of the Jews and 
the Moors drained Spain of its most useful subjects : this 
took place, A.D. 1492. 

Charlemagne protected the Jews like his other subjects. 
They were, in his reign, physicians and bankers, and even 
ambassadors of state; but under the third or Capet dy¬ 
nasty, they suffered bitter persecution throughout France. 
Philippe Auguste banished all the Jews from his do¬ 
minions, and declared all debts due to them null and 
void: again they re-entered France, and were once more 
expelled, under Philip the Fair, on the 22nd of July, 
1300. their synagogues were converted into churches 
and even their grave-stones torn up to be used in building 


PERSECUTIONS OF THE JEWS. 


293 


In Germany, about the same period, viz., in the thir¬ 
teenth and fourteenth centuries, the Jews were massacred 
repeatedly, at the cry of “ Hep ! Hep! Hep !” the initials 
of the words “ Hierosolyma est perdita,” i. e., “ Jerusalem 
is destroyed.” In 1236, they were accused of killing 
Christian boys for the sake of their blood for the passover, 
and were again hunted down. They suffered from fire 
and sword, in 1298, at Nuremberg ; and in the thirteenth 
century, at Vienna, they were forbidden the use of the 
same baths and rivers with the Christians. 

In Turkey and Barbary they have since settled in great 
numbers. In the eighteenth century, a milder spirit of 
toleration manifested itself towards the Jews in most of 
the countries of Europe. In Holland they have long 
formed a flourishing, numerous, honourable, and intelli¬ 
gent community. 

It appears that the Jews were settled in England as 
early as the Saxon period, a.d. 750. From the time of 
the Conquest, they increased in number, suffered griev¬ 
ously under Stephen and his successors, who were rapa¬ 
cious of their gold, and were cruelly persecuted by rich 
and poor, priest and people. 

In 1290, under Edward I., all Jews were banished from 
the kingdom. After the Restoration, in 1660, they re¬ 
turned, and again settled in England ; and since that time 
they have lived in the United Kingdom unmolested. 

Through the times of their worst oppression, in spite 
of banishment, robbery, and slaughter, the Jews have 
survived, as a standing miracle, in the midst of Chris¬ 
tendom—preserved of God for the fulfilment of his own 
purposes, and in large numbers. 

The following is a description of the present state of 
the Jews, by Professor Gaussen :— 

“ The restless feet of God’s ancient people are pressing, 
at this very hour, the snows of Siberia, and the burning 
sands of the desert. The missionary Gobat found num¬ 
bers of them in the elevated plains of Abyssinia; and 


294 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY 


when Denham and Clapperton (the first travellers who 
ventured across the Great Sahara) arrived on the banks 
of Lake Tchad, they also found that the wandering Jew 
had preceded them there, by many a long year. When 
the Portuguese settled in the Indian peninsula, they 
found three distinct classes of Jews; and when the 
English lately took possession of Aden, in the south of 
Arabia, the Jews were more in number there than the 
Gentiles. 

“By a census taken within the last few months, in 
Russia, they amount to 2,200,000; Morocco contains 
300,000, and Tunis 150,000. In the one small town of 
Sana, the capital of Arabia-Felix, they assemble together 
in eighteen synagogues. Yemen counts 200,000; the 
Turkish empire 200,000, of which Constantinople alone 
contains 80,000. At Brody, where the Christians, who 
are 10,000 in number, have only three churches, the 
Jews, 20,000 in number, have 150 synagogues. Hungary 
has 300,000; Cracovic 22,000. In a w T ord, it is ima¬ 
gined, that, were all the Jews assembled together, they 
would form a population of 7,000,000; so that, could 
you transport them into the land of their fathers this 
very year, they would form a nation more powerful 
and more numerous than the inhabitants of Holland and 
Belgium.” 

Mr. Dudley, in 1821, mentioned numerous testimonies 
from various quarters, which evidently indicated a desire 
on the part of many Jews to receive and study the Holy 
Scriptures. 

In the thirteenth Report of the Bible Society, it is stated, 
that “ the late wars and commotions on the earth, with 
the present wonderful exertions to spread the Holy Scrip¬ 
tures among all nations, seem to have made a deep im¬ 
pression on the minds of many of that ancient people. 
Dr. Pinkerton, in the course of his journeys on the con¬ 
tinent, collected some very interesting information to this 
effect. The committee, therefore, have procured, from 


Mil. BURCKHARDT.—HIS DEVOTED ZEAL. 295 


the Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, 
copies of the Gospels and Acts, in Hebrew, and dis¬ 
patched supplies to the Russian, Polish, and Frankfort 
Bible Societies.” 

A clergyman, travelling in Syria, says: “ I informed 
you of the rapidity with which I sold a considerable 
number of Hebrew Testaments to the Jews, at Aleppo. 
The day before my departure, the chief rabbi issued a 
prohibition against the purchase of the book. A cheap 
edition of the Hebrew Old Testament would have an easy 
sale in Aleppo.” 

Aleppo brings to mind the name of the lamented 
Burckhardt,—a young man of superior talents, and the 
most enterprising zeal, who, after succeeding in opening 
many acceptable channels for the distribution of the 
Scriptures, and making various important discoveries in 
connection with this object, in Egypt and Syria, was 
suddenly carried off by a fever, at Aleppo, from his work 
to his reward. 

Of Mr. Burckhardt, Dr. Naudi, secretary to the Malta 
Bible Society, thus writes: 

‘‘We have seen many here who appeared to be well 
adapted to take Bibles and Testaments into Egypt, but 
most showed some fear, either of the bashaw, or of the 
Mussulmans, or of the different denominations of Chris¬ 
tians, or of the Jews. But our esteemed Burckhardt left 
Malta, on board a Greek vessel, with six large cases full 
of Bibles and Testaments, in various languages, without 
any fear. He read, conversed, and distributed, in the 
most open manner; and Divine Providence, which, with¬ 
out doubt, conducts these great and important objects, 
assisted him in every step,—as well in giving him a right 
discernment in his enterprises, as in preparing the people 
for the reception of the word of truth. 

“ On his arrival at Alexandria, Mr. Burckhardt landed 
courageously with all his cases, which he took to an inn, 
where he with difficulty obtained a little garret, which 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


296 

hardly held him and his possessions. After two or three 
days, some masons came to make some alteration in the 
inn, and began to pull down his room ; but he, thinking 
the situation favourable for the sale and propagation of 
the Scriptures, would not quit the house, but removed 
with his health-giving merchandise into a shed belonging 
to it. Here he conversed with every one that passed 
by,—peasants, strangers, and merchants, both foreign and 
from the interior of the country. The seamen, who are 
very numerous at Alexandria, came so often to him, that 
he wrote to us, saying, that the Greek Testaments which 
he had dispersed would only be like so many drops 
thrown into the sea, so great was the demand for the 
word of God. 

“ He departed for Grand Cairo on board a country- 
boat, surrounded by a great number of Bibles. After ex¬ 
periencing some dangers, he arrived, took a little lodging, 
and, as before, exposed his wares to public sale. Here 
he found that his mission was not only known to all, but 
that he was actually waited for. Jews, Turks, Syrians, 
Copts, Christians, and Pagans, went to visit him, and, 
what is of more importance, to profit by the books he 
sold. 

“ A few days after his arrival, he wrote to me thus:— 

‘ My dear friend, I have nothing more now to give these 
people. All my stock is expended. If I had had with 
me twice or thrice as many copies of the Scriptures, I 
could have disposed of them without difficulty.’ 

“ In this central situation, he had the pleasure to arrange 
various things for the future success of our Malta Bible 
Society, in those extensive countries, with the bishops, 
patriarchs, and other persons of rank. The Coptic patri¬ 
arch has requested an edition in Coptic-Arabic, for the 
use of his flock, which most useful measure will be, I 
hope, attended to. 

“From Cairo Mr. Burckhardt went to Jerusalem, where 
he visited all the convents and public places, and furnished 


KARAITE JEWS AT LUTZK. 


297 


them everywhere with the word of God. At length, 
leaving Jerusalem, going by Syria, and visiting many 
places on his road, he came to the great and commercial 
city of Aleppo, in the neighbourhood of which, a fatal 
fever put an end to his valuable life; and thus, alas! we 
have been deprived of his earnest services. 

“ His memory will ever remain dear to us. All the 
friends of the Bible, who have any knowledge of what 
he has done in the Levant, have shed tears for him. By 
means of a friend who left this place yesterday, we have 
written to announce the sad event to his father, in 
Switzerland, and have enclosed the last letter his son 
wrote to us, dated from Antioch.” 

In the year 1822, Messrs. Henderson and Paterson sent 
some very interesting reports to the Society, from Russia, 
concerning the Jews. A Bible Association was formed 
in the town of Berditehev, which is inhabited by 16,000 
Jews, several of whom aided it by their subscriptions, 
and not only purchased copies of the Old, but seemed 
also anxious to obtain the New Testament. On this 
journey they received the most convincing proofs of the 
eagerness of Jews to receive and read the testimony of 
the Messiah. The travellers had previously ordered sup¬ 
plies of Hebrew New Testaments to be sent from St. Pe¬ 
tersburg, to meet them at the more important stations. 
In the town of Jitomir, in particular, their lodgings were 
almost besieged by Jews, who form by far the most 
numerous part of the population, to whom they gave 
copies, after ascertaining their ability to read and under¬ 
stand the Hebrew. 

Having learned that there was a settlement of Karaite 
or Reformed Jews in the town of Lutzk, Mr. Henderson 
visited that place, from Ostrog, to ascertain how the 
Scriptures might be distributed among them. In their 
appearance, their manners, and mode of worship, these 
people form a striking contrast to the other Jews. Un¬ 
shackled by the trammels of the Talmud, they are more 


298 THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

open to conviction, and better able to judge of the truth 
of what is proposed for their belief. The travellers wrote 
thus: “We had entertained the hope, that some of the 
Hebrew New Testaments might be advantageously dis¬ 
posed of among them, but, to our no small joy and sur¬ 
prise, found they were already in possession of the Book, 
and seemed to be perusing it without prejudice. The 
rabbi himself produced a copy from his library, in the 
course of our conversation relative to the fulfilment of 
ancient prophecy, and he spoke of its contents with high 
respect, before a large company, who had collected at his 
house, in order to listen to our communications. 

“ They are not convinced that the Messiah is already 
come, but their minds seem to be interested in no ordinary 
degree by the subject; and, were proper measures adopted 
for directing their attention to the true meaning of their 
own Scriptures, the paramount authority of which forms 
one of the most distinguishing parts of their creed, there 
is every probability that many of them would be brought 
to the acknowledgment of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, 
as their Messiah. It deserves to be recorded, to the honour 
of the Karaites of Lutzk, that, for the space of 200 years, 
no instance of law-suit or prosecution against them is to be 
found in the public documents of the place. They still 
retain the use of the Tartar language in their daily inter¬ 
course, and also in the synagogue for the purpose of ex¬ 
plaining the Hebrew text of the Law.” 

In the old Turkish town of Khotim, the master of the 
inn at which they slept was a Jew. He told them, that, 
on the next day, the whole Jewish population, men, 
women, and children, were to repair to the banks of the 
Dniester, in order to welcome a new rabbi, from Poland, 
who is reputed to be as holy, and to possess the power of 
performing wonders as great, as any of the ancient pro¬ 
phets in the land of promise. Before leaving Khotim, 
the agents presented their landlord with a copy of the 
Hebrew New Testament, which he accepted with every 


PURCHASE OF THE BIBLE BY JEWS. 299 

mark of gratitude, and they left him and another intelli¬ 
gent Jew busily engaged in reading the history of Christ, 
to whom all the prophets gave witness. 

In a letter from Dr. Pinkerton (1825), which describes 
a severe illness that had compelled him to return home, 
and relinquish, for a time, his tour in Greece and Turkey, 
he mentions two interesting facts; viz., that an African 
Jew had lately purchased thirty-three Hebrew Bibles, at 
Malta, and carried them with him to Tunis, for the use 
of his brethren there ; and that at Gibraltar another Jew 
had purchased 132 Hebrew Bibles, to carry with him to 
Leghorn, for the schools of his brethren in that place. 

At Thessalonica, or Saloniki, where Paul himself first 
preached the gospel after his release from imprisonment 
at Philippi (Acts 17. 1-10), there are still from 25,000 
to 30,000 Jews who speak the Jewish-Spanish language, 
and for whom the New Testament, in that version, will 
be particularly serviceable, if a way should, in the pro¬ 
vidence of God, be opened for introducing it among 
them.* At first these Jews declined to purchase the 
Hebrew Scriptures offered them by Mr. Barker; but even¬ 
tually they took his whole stock, and requested that more 
might be sent. How interesting for them to find, in the 
17th chapter of the Acts, the subject of the apostle’s own 
mission to their ancestors, nearly 1800 years ago! How 
delightful to be a successor of the apostles, in the charac¬ 
ter of a Bible Society agent, and return to the children 
that which we have received from their fathers! 

The Hebrew New Testament appeared to obtain access 
immediately to the minds of many Jews who had never 
before seen it. Dr. Pinkerton gave away five New Testa¬ 
ments in Poland, to those who had never read the doc¬ 
trines of Christ and his apostles in Hebrew. They all 
commenced reading with great avidity, and before he left 


* See forty-first Report. The printing of this version was com¬ 
pleted at Athens, in 1845. 


300 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


them, gave proofs of their understanding well what they 
read. In other places, he says, he could have distributed 
hundreds of copies, had he possessed them. 

In 1827, a very pleasant account is given by the late 
Rev. H. D. Leeves, the Society’s agent at Constantinople, 
of some Jewish converts, who suffered much for their 
belief in Jesus. They had read the New Testament 
secretly for three years, and were ready to confess Christ 
before men, which they were shortly called to do. The 
Jewish rabbins denounced those Jews who had visited 
the Bible-agents. Three of them were seized, one basti¬ 
nadoed, and all thrown into prison, where they were put 
in irons. When brought before the grand vizier, they 
boldly declared themselves to be Christians, and said the 
only reason why they were persecuted by their fellow- 
countrymen was, that they believed that the Messiah was 
come. These Jewish enemies used all their efforts to 
obtain the execution of one of their number, saying, like 
the Jews of old, “We demand the death of this accursed 
man, whose blood be upon us! ” This is the more re¬ 
markable, as the Jews never allow (if it be possible to pre¬ 
vent it, by the forfeit of even thousands of piastres) any 
one of their nation to be put to death by the Turks: but 
the dragoman of the Porte, to his honour, refused to dip 
his hands in innocent blood; and, in a conversation with 
Mr. Hartley, actually compared their conduct to that of 
their forefathers before Pilate. The accused were, how¬ 
ever, thrown into prison for a term of six months. 

When cruel accusation had failed, the Jews assailed 
them with all the temptations of persuasion: a full pardon 
with immediate deliverance was promised to them if they 
returned to their old religion; and, when they still stood 
firm, it was falsely announced to them, that next morn¬ 
ing they would be led to execution. Thus, for a whole 
night they had the view of death before their eyes, and 
they spent that night in reading the New Testament with 
weeping and prayer. Through the agency of these cruel 


THREE JEWISH CONVERTS. 


301 


Jews, their labour and sufferings in the prison to which 
they were condemned were multiplied tenfold, but their 
faith and love to Christ put to shame those who had long 
borne the Christian name. 

Mr. Leeves says of them: “Their Christianity is in¬ 
deed the work of the New Testament, and the members 
of the Bible Society may rejoice over their conversion, as 
the fruit, under God, of their exertions in the circulation 
of the Scriptures. One of these good men, when bap¬ 
tized, chose the name of John Baptist, from his wish to 
imitate his example, and, like him, to prepare the way of 
the Saviour by preaching to his brethren the Jews.” 

In the letters of Mr. Leeves, appended to the twenty- 
fourth Report of the Society, the following particulars, 
concerning these converted Jews, are given. They were 
subjected to long-continued trial of their faith and pa¬ 
tience in the prison. Two of them remained steadfast, 
one of whom was John Baptist. The third, whose name 
was David, relapsed to Judaism. He still, however, re¬ 
mained in prison with the rest; and it was generally 
believed that the Jews would not pardon him though he 
returned to them, as, having been baptized, he would 
always be esteemed by them as a polluted person. 

The imprisonment was lengthened out to three years , 
and any one during that period daring to demand their 
deliverance, was to be thrown into the same prison with 
them. The unfortunate backslider shared in their con¬ 
tinued punishment, and the Jews willingly gave him up 
as a sacrifice. He therefore gained nothing by his denial 
of his Master. 

In the year 1829, it was announced that these Jews had 
been released from their imprisonment, and that the two 
remained steadfast. The reports of them continued satis¬ 
factory, and they were successful in bringing over several, 
others to the knowledge of the truth. Thirteen convert! 
were, through their means, baptized, and made ready to 
suffer persecution. They were banished to Cesarea; and 


302 THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

it was among the most pleasing of Mr. Barker’s duties to 
forward copies of the Scriptures for their comfort during 
their banishment. John Baptist afterwards visited Mr. 
Barker, at Smyrna; and it was considered that the way 
was preparing for the further triumph of the gospel 
amongst the Jews of the. Levant. Thus much for the 
mission of the British and Foreign Bible Society, for five- 
and-twenty years among the Jews. And now we take in 
order the remnants of the Ancient Christian Churches. 

THE BRITISH, THE SYRIAN, THE ARMENIAN, THE 
NESTORIAN, THE ABYSSINIAN, AND THE 
VAUDOIS CHURCHES. 

The ancient British Church was cared for by the Bible 
Society in their early gift of the Scriptures to Wales and 
to Scotland; and for the blessing on the descendants of 
the ancient primitive Church in Ireland, we must look 
from the Jubilee-field, and also under the head of Pro¬ 
testant Countries. 

THE SYRIAN CHURCH. 

We did not say much, in the former part of this Book, 
about the ancient Syrian churches, as existing in India. 
“ Their remnants are now to be found,” says the Bombay 
Report for 1818, “in Cochin, which, of all the places 
within the reach of this Society in India, is the most 
interesting.” 

The Christians of St. Thomas had been long seated on 
the coast of Malabar, when the Portuguese first opened 
the navigation of India. They were probably converted 
to Christianity by the Syrian, Mar Thomas, a Nestorian, 
who has been confounded with the Apostle St. Thomas. 
During the seventh century, their church was consider¬ 
ably increased by the labours of two Syrians, Mar Sopor, 
and Mar Pedosis. 


THE SYRIAN CHURCH. 


303 


u On the arrival of the Portuguese, these Christians,” 
says Mr. Gibbon, “ excelled the natives of Hindustan in 
arts, in arms, and probably in virtue. The husbandmen 
cultivated the palm-trade, the merchants were enriched 
by the pepper-trade, the soldiers preceded the nobles of 
Malabar, and their hereditary privileges were respected 
by the King of Cochin himself. They were governed 
by the Bishop of Cranganore, who asserted his ancient 
title of ‘Metropolitan of India’; he executed his juris¬ 
diction in 1400 churches, and was intrusted with the 
care of 200,000 souls.” 

It was the first desire of the ministers of Rome, now 
arrived from Portugal, to intercept all correspondence 
with the Nestorian patriarch, and many of his bishops 
expired in the prisons of the holy office. The power 
of the Portuguese, the arts of the Jesuits, and the zeal 
of the Archbishop of Goa, who personally visited the 
coast of Malabar, greatly troubled, if it did not destroy, 
this Protestant Church in India, while they had also to 
complain of the cold and silent indifference of their 
brethren of Europe. 

Many of these Syrian churches, are found to be still 
in existence ; and the Bombay committee of the Bible So¬ 
ciety took care to present them with the few copies of the 
Syriac Gospels which they had received from England. It 
was proved that they would very thankfully receive larger 
supplies. 

The eighth Report of the British and Foreign Bible 
Society contains a reference to the Christians dispersed 
over Hindustan, including Ceylon, and in number said to 
be nearly 1,000,000,—few of them having the happiness 
to possess the sacred Scriptures. 

Many of the descendants of these ancient Christians 
have, from the want of these precious records, relapsed 
into idolatry, and are Christians only in name. It was 
determined to aid them, by a grant to the Society at 


304 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Calcutta, of Bibles, Testaments, and printing-paper, to 
the value of 1000/.* 

When Dr. Buchanan, in 1806, visited the Syrian 
Christians in India, he found several important manu¬ 
scripts of great antiquity, which he brought with him to 
England. The last years of his useful and laborious 
life were devoted to the preparation of a printed edition 
from these manuscripts; and he died, so to speak, with 
the sheets of the Syriac Testament in his hands. A 
short time prior to his decease, he was walking with a 
friend in the churchyard at Clapham, when he suddenly 
stopped and burst into tears. As soon as he had reco¬ 
vered his self-possession, he said to his friend, “ Do not 
be alarmed; I am not ill; but I was completely over¬ 
come with the recollection of the delight with which I 
had engaged in the exercise of preparing the Syriac 
Scriptures. At first I was disposed to shrink from the 
task as irksome, and feared I should find even the Scrip¬ 
tures pall by the frequency of this critical examination. 
But, so far from it, every fresh reading only seemed to 
throw fresh light upon the word of God, and to convey 
additional joy and consolation to my mind.” 

In 1811, also, Dr. Buchanan, forwarded some intelli¬ 
gence respecting these Indian Christians. He spoke of 
fifty-five churches in Malayala (comprehending the region 
between Cape Comorin and Cape Illi) acknowledging the 
patriarch of Antioch. “These,” said he, “are Syrian 
Christians: they delive their liturgy from the early church 
at Antioch. What copies they have of the Scriptures 
are in Syriac, and they need them translated into the 
Malayalim. They have attempted to do this themselves, 
but in vain. When a proposal was made, that a Mala- 

* Paper was sent out as a grant from the Parent Society, owing 
to the enormous price of that article in India, at this time. A small 
edition of the New Testament, in 1811, of 1000 copies only, if 
printed in India, would cost 1000/., on account of the high price of 
paper. 


THE SYRIAN VERSION.—DR. BUCHANAN. 305 

yalim translation should be sent to each of their fifty-five 
churches, as a standard book, on condition that they 
would transcribe and circulate the copies among the 
people, the elders replied, that, so great was their desire 
to have the Bible in the vulgar tongue, that it might be 
expected that every man who could write would make 
a copy on ollas (palm leaves) for his own family.” 

Perhaps you have never seen these ollas on which 
the natives of India used to write ; they now chiefly use 
paper. They are long, narrowish leaves, very much like 
our stiff, flat Iris leaves, with the top and bottom cut off, 
only of a stouter texture. They are dried in the sun, 
and written upon with an iron style or pen. Over the 
characters thus made, lamp-black is rubbed, and the 
traced letters receive a black impression : the leaves are 
strung together by a ribbon, two round holes being 
stamped in each leaf. This kind of book is not now so 
common as it was, but is rather a literary curiosity. 

In the Report for 1819, the committee notice an edi¬ 
tion of 4000 copies of the Syrian Old Testament, as being 
ready to accompany the New Testament, before printed: 
they also sorrowfully allude to the death of the Rev. 
Dr. Buchanan, who had interested himself so zealously 
for these Syrian Christians, and the last act of whose 
life was preparing for them that holy Book which they 
now possess and peruse with great satisfaction and thank¬ 
fulness. Dr. Buchanan only lived to superintend the 
issue of this impression, up to the close of the Acts of the 
Apostles; and the revision of the rest was completed by 
Professor Lee. 

In 1821, the Syrian Christians in Travancore had been 
supplied with these New Testaments, and some Nestorians 
residing in Jerusalem were much pleased with them, and 
said they would sell rapidly in Diarbekir. 

Besides these Syrian churches, there is in Cochin a 
large population of Protestants, the remains of the Dutch 
colonists; and among the Christians who have settled in 

2i 


306 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


India, the Dutch have very justly the merit of having 
done much towards the promotion of Christianity. They 
established schools, and caused the New Testament and 
a great part of the Old to be translated into the Malabar 
language. To these the committee sent a grant of the 
Dutch Scriptures, as their establishments are now much 
neglected and fallen into decay, having lost their pittance 
of salary. 

There is still also another race of people in Cochin, 
particularly interesting,—the White and Black Jews 
of Malabar, in whose record-chest, you will remember, 
Dr. Buchanan, in 1806, found the old Hebrew roll, which 
is now deposited at Cambridge. 

Some of these Syrian Christians are found at Aleppo. 
Mr. Barker, in 1825, mentions a visit from a Syrian 
bishop, who came to Aleppo on his way to Jerusalem. 
This prelate assured him, that, throughout all Mesopota¬ 
mia, the Holy Scriptures in the Carshun language (Arabic, 
with Syriac characters) would prove a most acceptable 
gift to the Christians. The Syrian bishop was accom¬ 
panied by a member of his church, who observed, that 
the Arabic New Testament had proved a real consolation 
to his brother, long deprived of the use of his limbs; 
and that he had read it again and again, and had found 
in it things of which before he was wholly ignorant. 

THE ARMENIAN CHURCH. 

In the year 1815, the Armenian Bible, in quarto, was 
being printed for the use of the Armenian inhabitants 
of Russia, who had subscribed liberally to the Institu¬ 
tion. They took a great interest in the publication of 
the Scriptures, also subscribing for half the edition of 
the New Testament of 5000 copies; and the Bible Society 
agreed to assist this desirable undertaking by a donation 
of 500Z. From Russia, in the same year, Dr. Pinkerton 
writes: “ Thus is the blessing of the Lord upon our la- 


THE ARMENIAN CHURCH. 


307 


hours, and astonishing is the manner in which Divine 
Providence breaks up the way before us, and gives us 
hopes of soon seeing the word of God spread among all 
the nations between us and India. Our Calmuc-Tartar, 
Armenian, and Georgian editions of the Scriptures, are 
the glorious links of a chain of life, which will soon unite 
us with our Indian co-labourers.” 

In 1814, the Calcutta Auxiliary Bible Society under¬ 
took a large edition of the Armenian Scriptures, at the 
earnest request of Johannes Sarkies, a principal Arme¬ 
nian, at Calcutta, who himself came forward with 5000 
rupees, as the united subscription of his countrymen to 
that work. 

These Armenians are scattered z \i over Asia. They 
have churches in various parts of the Ganges’ side of 
India, at Madras, Bombay, Surat, Bagdad, Busheer, Mus¬ 
cat, and other places. Jerusalem, Diarbekir, and Con¬ 
stantinople, are patriarchal seats. These people have 
formed settlements wherever they have found an open¬ 
ing for trade. They are found in many places in Hin¬ 
dustan; and a very considerable number of them are 
settled, as has been said, in Russia, and also at Ve¬ 
nice. 

At Venice, the most correct copies of their Bible had 
been printed; but they were very dear and scarce. In 
Calcutta, an Armenian Bible could not be purchased, in 
1815, under sixty or seventy rupees ; indeed, it was only 
procurable at that price, on the death of any gentleman, 
at the sale of his books. In Calcutta, the Armenians 
are rich; “and if,” says the Calcutta committee, “the 
want of a Bible is so great here, what must it be in other 
places! ” 

Two thousand copies of this old version, made in a.d. 
460, and long existent in manuscript, were reprinted at 
the Serampore press, in 1817; and in the same year the 
St. Petersburg Bible Society printed 5000 copies for the 
use of the Armenians in Russia. 


308 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


In the successive years of 1818, 1819, and 1823, the 
Society purchased at Venice, and also printed at Constan¬ 
tinople, various editions for the use of the Christians in 
Armenia. The gradual influence of the dispersion of 
this ancient or ecclesiastical version, on the educated part 
of the people, will be made evident in further records. 

Missionaries from America have laboured very much 
among this people, who now speak a dialect called the 
Modern Armenian, into which it has likewise been found 
necessary to translate the Scriptures. 

The British and Foreign Bible Society made the first 
attempt, on record, to produce a version in this dialect. 
A modern version of tine New Testament was completed, 
in 1824, by Dr. Zohrab, under their auspices ; and it was 
printed at Paris, in parallel columns with the ancient 
Armenian : the results of the distribution of this version 
also, which are really unprecedented, will be stated on a 
future page. We have said thus much about the Arme¬ 
nians, because they are a people of much importance from 
their numbers. Their merchants conduct all the traffic 
and manufactures of Turkey and Persia, and their hier¬ 
archy, in India alone, equals in numbers that of Great 
Britain; added to which, the Paulicians, a sect which 
arose in Armenia, are, in some sense, through the Wal- 
denses and Wiclif, enrolled among the spiritual ancestry 
of our reformers. 

THE NESTORIAN CHURCH. 

Concerning the Nestorian Christians there is not much 
at this era to say. The language they speak is nearly 
identical with the Syriac. The edition for which they 
petitioned left the press in 1829. “ So great is the anti¬ 

pathy of this people to popery, that they have a singular 
and most anti-Christian custom of cursing the pope regu¬ 
larly every day, his grandfather, grandmother, and grand¬ 
children ! ” 


THE ABYSSINIAN CHURCH.—MR. PEARCE. 309 


THE ABYSSINIAN CHURCH. 

In 1811, the committee, owing to intelligence brought 
home by the traveller, Mr. Salt, concluded to print an 
Ethiopic version of the book of Psalms, for the use of 
the nations of Abyssinia, and they endeavoured to pro¬ 
cure a version of one of the Gospels in that language, 
with a view to the same object. 

There is a remarkable account of the reception of these 
Psalters in Abyssinia, communicated in a letter from Mr. 
Xathaniel Pearce, an agent employed by Mr. Scott, who 
was then consul-general for Egypt. This agent was seen 
by Mr. Jowett in 1819, and is described as a “ wild, tall 
man, dressed in a sheepskin, waiting with his camels at 
the gate of the consulate, just come from Abyssinia, a 
journey of eighty-nine days, troubles having compelled 
him to quit the country.” 

The following is an extract from the letter:—“ The 
books of the Psalters,” says Mr. Pearce, “ in Ethiopic, 
which you sent into this country, I have carefully and 
diligently distributed to the different churches and holy 
places, in the name of the Bible Society. I must tell 
you that the people find some faults in them. The ink, 
they say, is not black enough, the strokes too thin, the 
letters too much crowded together, no red ink at the 
name of God, etc., no books of the blessed Virgin, Solo¬ 
mon, and the Prophets, written as they are in this coun¬ 
try ; so they cannot accept them as church books; but 
in exactness they allow them to excel their own writing, 
and they are very partial to those in red morocco bind¬ 
ings ! I presented two to the king, Itsa Takley Gorges.” 
Mr. Pearce says again: “I have the pleasure to inform 
you, that I have had the honour of being called before 
an assembly of not less than eighty of the most learned 
priests in Abyssinia. This meeting was held in the pre¬ 
sence of the king, on the top of the flat-roofed church, at 


310 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Axum, on the 6th of December, 1817. The first ques¬ 
tion I was asked, was, 4 Who wrote those books ; and by 
whose orders were they written?’ They next asked me 
if one man wrote all those books, they being all exactly 
alike, observing that these books could not be written in 
ten years by ten men in this country. 1 did all in my 
power to make them understand how they were printed, 
but they would not believe that one man could engrave 
the print in less than twenty years. The king said, 4 If 
I were to try to cut the letters in wood, much more 
in brass or any other metal, it would take me a whole 
day to complete fifteen or sixteen; and after they were 
finished, how many years it would take me to put them 
together! ’ ” 

So you see the Abyssinians, in 1817, had not partaken 
of the light from the printing-press, which had then per¬ 
vaded the continent of Europe for nearly 300 years. 

The four Gospels were completed in Ethiopic, for their 
use, in 1826, and the entire New Testament was pub¬ 
lished in 1830. 

Ethiopic, however, is only the language for the learned 
men of Abyssinia; Amharic is its vulgar tongue: and, 
concerning the Amharic translation, many interesting 
particulars have already been given, in our account of 
the library at the Bible Society House. The. transla¬ 
tion, purchased by Mr. Jowett, occupied M. Asselin and 
his aged companion ten years. Tuesdays and Saturdays 
they shut their dour against everybody, and translated 
from the Arabic, the Hebrew, and the Syriac, into the 
Amharic. 

The New Testament was published in 1829, and this 
work was seen to be of immense importance, as the trans¬ 
lation made for a people who were already students of 
Scripture, as far as they possessed it, whose first study 
was the Bible, whose first spiritual want the gospel, which 
they read over and over again constantly every day. Mr 
Jowett says, “ How deeply Christianity must once have 


THE YAUDOIS CHURCH. 


311 


been seated in the hearts of the Abyssinians, appears 
from a great variety of proofs. How delightful once more 
to restore to them a general knowledge of the Scriptures! 
—to a country in the heart of Africa,—a continent which 
seems left to these latter ages of the world to remind the 
benevolent of something they have not done,—the learned 
of something they have not discovered.” 

“ One day,” said the devoted missionary, Mr. Gobat 
(now Bishop of Jerusalem), “lam all joy with the hope 
that, in a short time, the Abyssinian mission will be 
crowned with success: the following day I am cast down 
to the very dust, by the idea, that all attempts will be 
useless: for the Abyssinians very generally yield to the 
truth, but it is only for awhile. They cannot make up 
their minds to quit so much as one of their customs. 
Thus, faith is tried for a time, yet the promise is sure, 
that God’s ‘ word shall not return unto Him void ’; and 
the day perhaps is near, when Ethiopia will stretch out 
her hands unto God.” 


THE VAUDOIS CHURCH. 

In the Report for 1816 it is stated that a Bible Society 
has been organised among the Waldenses inhabiting the 
valleys of Piedmont, which comprise thirteen parishes, 
and a population of 17,000 souls; but such is the poverty 
of the people that they were not able to collect more than 
50 1. for the purpose of purchasing the Scriptures. The 
committee, in consideration of their peculiar circum¬ 
stances, and doubtless in recollection of their past history, 
presented them with a donation of 200/. 

A letter from the secretary of this small Society says, 
“ The misery is extreme in our valleys, which are inun¬ 
dated with a legion of Piedmontese beggars, who, though 
Catholics, come to implore the charity of the Protestants. 
The continual wants of the body occasion almost an en¬ 
tire forgetfulness of those of the soul; and we cannot 


312 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


flatter ourselves that we shall receive more than 1000 
francs in our thirteen churches. Our brethren at'Turin 
have, however, promised to double our funds; yet, even 
with this addition, it will be impossible for us to furnish 
the fiftieth part of the Bibles we want: few families here 
possess the means of procuring them from foreign parts, 
at heavy expense. The Basle Bible Society has twice gra¬ 
tified us with a gift of 86 New Testaments, and 100 addi¬ 
tional copies are speedily expected to arrive. We hope 
that God who has favoured us with this supply, will in¬ 
crease it. Next to Him, we look to the British nation, 
and to your noble Society for support. Without England, 
the Vaudois would long since have ceased to exist. Its 
government has paid a kind attention to their temporal 
wants. Its Bible Society will also deign, they hope, to 
consider its spiritual wants.” 

In answer to this request, the grant before mentioned 
was made, and warm were the thanks which it brought 
from the heart of the mountains. “ Your generosity ac¬ 
tually electrifies us ; but to God we give thanks for what 
we receive, praising and magnifying his Holy Name, at 
the same time supplicating Him to bless your persons 
and your labours. We laid the foundations and estab¬ 
lished the first rules of the Vaudois Bible Society, on the 
very day on which you were so kindly occupying your¬ 
selves about us. How do we rejoice over the advantage 
of being in connection, and as it were in contact of heart 
and mind, with you, dear and honoured brethren ! ” 

In 1818, the Bible Society established at La Tour, for 
the valleys of Piedmont, had distributed 150 Bibles and 
1865 New Testaments. “ The poor inhabitants of those 
valleys, stirred up again by the spirit which so eminently 
distinguished their pious ancestors, come and earnestly en¬ 
treat to be received as members of the Waldenses’ Bible 
Society, and urge the acceptance of such mites as they 
are able to present.” 


313 


CHAPTER VI. 

THE WORK OF THE BIBLE SOCIETY AMONG ROMAN CATHOLICS.— 

THE GREEK CHURCH.-DISTRIBUTION OF THE BIBLE BY ROMAN- 

CATHOLIC PRIESTS.-GENERAL WILLINGNESS OF THE ROMAN- 

CATHOLIC LAITY TO RECEIVE IT.-ANECDOTES.-LEANDER VAN 

ESS.-FRANCE.-PROFESSOR KIEFFER.-THE PRAYER OF THE 

DYING SISTER, AND ITS ANSWER.-AUSTRIA AND BELGIUM.- 

THE ROMAN-CATHOLIC PORTION OF GERMANY, PRUSSIA, POLAND, 

AND SWITZERLAND.-ITALY, SPAIN, AND PORTUGAL.-RUSSIA : 

THE BIBLE SOCIETY THERE; ITS EXTINCTION.-THE TRIBE OF 

BURIATS.-TURKEY, EUROPEAN AND ASIATIC; ITS MIXED POPU¬ 
LATION. -THE TURKS.-FOREIGN AGENCY.-MR. BARKER. — 

GREECE.—SOUTH AMERICA.-DR. THOMSON.—A FEW WORDS ON 

THE APOCRYPHA.-THE MAHOMEDAN COUNTRIES.-THE HEA¬ 

THEN COUNTRIES. 

We must now pass on to inquire what had been the 
distribution of the Bible among the members of Roman- 
Catholic and Greek Churches, all over the world, during 
the first twenty-five years of the existence of the Bible 
Society. 

In the very first Report of the Society, a singular 
feature of its history was presented in the letter of a 
Roman-Catholic priest, in Swabia, to Dr. Steinkopff. 
“ He had heard,” he said, “ of the example of the Bible 
Society, who were filled with a noble desire to send out 
the pure word of God, as the best preacher, into the world, 
and he wished it a thousand blessings. He allowed that 
all blind bigots of his church had always spread the 
opinion that it was entirely forbidden for all laymen to 
read the Bible; but he declared there were many clergy¬ 
men in Swabia who did everything in their power to 
promote the reading of the Bible, especially of the New 


314 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Testament; that their number was daily increasing ; and 
that they even felt a desire to form a Bible Society among 
themselves, but that, in the meantime, he would be glad 
of Scriptures to circulate.” The Bible Society thought 
this opening worthy of their particular attention, and they 
authorised the Society at Nuremberg to furnish 1000 
copies of the Protestant edition of the New Testament, for 
sale or gift among the Roman Catholics of Swabia. 

In 1810, from several parts in the south-eastern pro¬ 
vinces of France, authentic accounts had been received, 
that many Roman Catholics requested copies of the New 
Testament, and had perused them with great eagerness 
and gratitude. 

In a yet earlier year of the Society, Pastor Oberlin had 
given, in a letter to the committee, a vivid sketch of the 
desire after Bibles in the interior of France. He told of 
the villages of the Steinthal, in which he himself laboured, 
and which had been evangelised fifty years previously, by 
the good Pastor Huber, who sent for fifty French Protes¬ 
tant Bibles from Basle, had them divided into three parts, 
and bound in strong parchment, which made 150 books. 
These he lent in the schools, even permitting the scholars 
to take them home. 

A Roman Catholic entered a house in one of these vil¬ 
lages, and spied in the window a thick book with a lock. 
Having heard that Bibles had this appearance, he took it 
down, looked at the title, and asked if one could have 
such a Bible for a crown. The owner answered, “ Yes.” 
The Catholic threw down the crown, and ran away witn 
the Bible to his own village. From that time the demand 
increased continually, and several hundred Bibles were 
sold, given, or lent; many copies, however, were taken 
by the priests from the people, as of old time, and burnt, 
and sometimes violent contention took place about them. 

“ Once a priest surprised one of his people over the 
Bible, snatched it from him with bitter reproaches, and 
was going off with it, when the man, who had seen the 


THE BIBLE AMONG ROMAN CATHOLICS. 315 

world, and often heard from his neighbours of the priests 
taking away their Bibles, jumped up, seized his hanger, 
placed himself before the door, and cried out, ‘ Mons. le 
Gur£! replace that Bible on the table! I respect your 
character; but a thief is no pastor. I will rather cut you 
in pieces than suffer you to steal a Bible which has been 
kindly lent to me.’ The priest restored the Bible, but 
ordered the man to return it to the owner; and thus many 
were returned to us.” 

About the same period, in Germany, a Roman-Catholic 
clergyman writes, “ Blessed be God, we have at last a 
cheap Bible for the people of our own persuasion! The 
printing is happily completed at Ratisbon, and several 
thousand copies are now circulating in various Roman- 
Catholic provinces of Germany. I myself distributed 650 
copies. Eight of our clergymen have publicly announced 
the excellent Ratisbon Institution, and most earnestly 
recommend the reading of the Holy Scriptures. Imme¬ 
diately after their sermons, numbers applied, and 2000 
copies were not sufficient to satisfy them all. The Bible 
is now read by students, by the people, and even by chil¬ 
dren. My friend, Professor Sailer, sent 600 copies to his 
friends in the Roman-Catholic cantons of Switzerland, 
and I did the same to mine in Austria.” 

Several Protestant divines having seen this edition of 
the New Testament translated by the Roman Catholics at 
Ratisbon, pronounce it to be faithfully translated from the 
original Greek. 

Some of the letters from Roman Catholic clergymen, 
attached to the first Reports, excite a mixture of pleasure 
and surprise. Whatever these good men may have called 
themselves, they seem to have belonged in spirit to the 
Universal Church of the Book, and in their own countries 
they aided not a little in its dispersion in the early years 
of the Bible Society. 

The higher powers of the Roman-Catholic Church did 
not at first seem awakened to perceive what would be the 


316 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


results of this spread of the Bible. The country clergy 
might then act as they pleased; and if they were now 
free from the iron hand of spiritual despotism, under 
which they groan, numbers of them would still probably 
take their stand upon the word of God. 

At the late Jubilee-meeting, in Exeter-hall, the Duke 
of Argyll, who is president of the Scottish Bible Society, 
expressed his “ firm conviction on this point, that the 
great mass of the people in Roman-Catholic countries 
would be ready and willing to read and acknowledge the 
authority of the Bible, if allowed to act freely for them¬ 
selves.” 

By the year 1814, the Bible Society began to prove 
that the Bible is not a book exclusively for the clergy 
and the learned, but the Book for the human race. In 
the Report for that year, is first mentioned the honoured 
name of Leander Van Ess, Catholic professor of divinity, 
at Marbourg. He was a clergyman who, with his bro¬ 
ther, had produced an excellent translation of the New 
Testament, from the Greek into German, and desired 
help from the Bible Society to circulate it. They voted 
him 200/., on condition that the few notes accompanying 
his own impression should be struck out. Generously 
sustained in succeeding years, by grant after grant from 
the committee, and in defiance of mandates which began 
to issue from Rome, of the old kind, in favour of tradi¬ 
tion , and in cheek of Bible-distribution, this diligent pro¬ 
fessor saw the dispersion of many editions of his New 
Testament, and had the joy of gratifying “ the great and 
irresistible desire of the people to have the Bible.” Mr. 
Owen saw him, at Basle, in 1818, and describes him as 
“ a most interesting man, in the prime of life, apparently 
about forty years of age: his countenance is intelligent 
and manly, his conversation fluent and animated, and his 
whole manner partaking of that ardour and vivacious 
energy which so remarkably characterise all his writings 
and operations. The dissemination of the Holy Scriptures, 


LEANDER VAN ESS. 


317 


and the blessed effects with which it is attended, are the 
theme on which he delights to discourse: they seem to 
occupy his whole soul, and to constitute, in a manner, 
the element in which he exists. 

The letters of Leander Van Ess to the committee are, 
in themselves, treasures of Christian love and energy. 
We cannot quote them, but they are all*in these Bible 
Reports, which now, as in a long-closed mine, contain 
ungathered gems of history,—a history which would be 
thought worth tracing even by the angels of God. 

A child once said to us, “ Why do they not make 
history-lessons from the lives of God’s men, who have 
done good in the world, and give them to children, in¬ 
stead of the histories of kings, and the men who have 
made war in the world?” Such histories are laid up 
here in great abundance. Here are the sacred relics of 
hearts which burnt, with the pure flame of devotion and 
zeal, in the noblest work in which man can engage on 
earth, and whose “ work of faith and labour of love” the 
All-seeing One has remembered, while perhaps man has 
forgotten; for the circulation of his word is his own 
design, and He has ever watched over it, and brought it 
to pass. “ It shall prosper in that whereto He hath 
sent it.” 


In the wide glance we have wished to take over the 
Roman-Catholic kingdoms,—over France , Austria, Bel¬ 
gium, half of Germany , two-fifths of Prussia , Poland, 
two-fifths of Switzerland, over Italy, Spain, and Por¬ 
tugal, and also over Mexico, and the whole continent of 
South America, together with the work of the Society 
among the members of the Greek Church in Greece, in 
European and Asiatic Turkey , and in European and 
Asiatic Russia, —our heart almost fails us in entering into 
detail;—there is so much to tell, and so little space in 
which to tell it. It were easy to write a book on the 
dispersion of the Bible in any one of these kingdoms; 



318 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


but to give you a definite idea of its work in *z//,—that is 
the difficulty. The Roman-Catholic religion in Europe is 
professed by 120 millions of people, which is half the 
European population. The Greek church numbers more 
than 55 millions ; and, added together, they are 175 mil¬ 
lions, as nearly as calculation can be made. Let us just 
see what, in 1829, had been the result of the spread of 
the Bible in— 


FRANCE. 

It is known to be a fact, that, even in 1814, some pious 
Englishmen, who came to Paris, made an attempt to 
meet with a French Bible of any version, and that they 
were unsuccessful in their search. 

In 1813, the Bible Society subscribed 250/. to a stereo¬ 
type edition of Le Maistre de Sacy’s Version of the New 
Testament for the use of the Catholics in France. In 
1818, when Mr. Owen paid a visit in Paris to Professor 
Kieffer, and found him revising the Turkish Bible, his 
thoughts were also busy on what might be done among 
the Roman-Catholic portion of the population. His dis¬ 
tributions among them in 1819 and 1820, cost the com¬ 
mittee upwards of 2000/. Professor Kieffer was appointed 
as regular agent, in 1820, and continued so to act until 
1833. His issues, during this period, amounted to more 
than 730,000 copies, chiefly amongst Roman Catholics. 

In 1830, when religious liberty was at its height in 
France, a strenuous effort was made to aid the religious 
movement which it had commenced in Paris, with a view 
to evangelise the Roman Catholics. Several places of 
worship were opened in the capital, which were filled to 
overflowing. 

In the meantime, God was preparing for his own work 
one, who, for twenty years, has since directed the agency 
of the Bible Society in France, with consummate zeal and 
prudence. Monsieur de P. -was not appointed as agent 
till 1833, and the account of his labours belongs to the 


a sister’s prayer answered. 319 

second era of the Society’s history. But you will like 
to know one or two instances of his early life. 

He was the son of a Catholic father and a Protestant 
mother (the latter being descended from the persecuted 
Huguenots), and was brought up a Catholic, as it had 
been arranged the sons should be. The whole family 
emigrated to Holland at the Revolution, and the son 
thus became a pupil of the Jesuits, and was a second time 
baptized by the reverend fathers, with great pomp. They 
sought further refuge at Lausanne, and here the youth 
came under Protestant influence, and more especially 
under that of his elder sister, who was a confirmed in¬ 
valid, and passed her days extended on an arm-chair,— 
finding her whole consolation in the Family-Bible, which 
was from morning till night before her. 

Every day she called her brother to her side, for the 
purpose of speaking to him of her hopes and spiritual 
joys, with an unction and a rapture which would have 
moved any heart. Several days before her death, feeling 
her end approaching, she spoke to her brother with more 
energy than ever. She read to him a number of the 
most forcible passages of Scripture, and besought him to 
give his heart to the Lord, while frequently she was 
heard, by persons passing her room, imploring the Lord, 
when alone, that her brother might become a servant of 
his word. 

And, oh! how this prayer of the dying was answered, 
let the whole history of colportage upon the continent 
of Europe bear witness! God has often answered such 
prayers, and He never withdraws from his work on 
earth the strength of an earnest soul, but He suffers 
that soul, in departing, to cast some seed into the mind 
of another, which shall “ spring up and bring forth fruit 
abundantly,” and thus his work goes on ; and though 
“ all flesh is grass, and the grass withereth, and the flower 
fadeth,” still “ the word of the Lord endureth for ever.” 


320 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


AUSTRIA. 

During the lengthened period that Prince Metternich 
was prime minister, the Bible Society was not permitted 
to take any open and active measures, in furtherance of 
its object in this country, up to the year 1847 

BELGIUM. 

In Belgium, a small dep6t of Bibles, only 1000 copies, 
were, in 1816, confided to the care of a few Christian 
friends in Brussels: but even after twenty years there 
were some remaining, which, at that period, were freely 
given away. They might have deserved the name of 
“ dusty Bibles”: not one copy was to be found in any 
of the shops of Antwerp and Bruges. The friends of 
Bible-circulation must here look to the second era of the 
Society, for cheering and abundant success. 

As the work of the Bible Society, in parts of Germany, 
Prussia, Poland, and Switzerland, has already been no¬ 
ticed, it is not necessary to say more than that, although 
(in the words of Dr. Steinkopff) “ there was only one 
Leander Van Ess,” still many faithful men were, during 
all this period, labouring among the Boman-Catholic as 
well as the Protestant population of these countries, and 
that vast numbers of copies of the Scripture were granted 
to the strong, personal desire of the people. Dr. Pinker¬ 
ton, however, in his correspondence attached to the 
twenty-sixth Beport, speaks of comparatively little being 
.effected, because of the powerful opposition made by the 
priests. “ They take up the books, examine them, and 
exclaim-, ‘ These are Protestant books, good for nothing 
but for the fire!’ while, from the blind submission of the 
people, they seldom fail to make it known at confession 
when a Testament has been given to them, and this 
generally leads to their being deprived of it.” 


RUSSIA. 


321 


In Italy, Spain, and Portugal, “ doubly barred coun¬ 
tries against the entrance of Divine truth,” little also 
was accomplished, or, indeed, directly attempted, before 
the year 1835, except grants to prisoners of war from 
those regions, and some small circulation of Testaments 
in their colonial possessions. But we have not yet ap¬ 
proached the vast empire of— 

RUSSIA, 

with its surface of more than half that of Europe, embracing 
about one-seventh of the whole land of the earth, and 
about one-thirteenth of its entire inhabitants ;—Russia, 
with its spreading corn-fields, its absolute monarchy, its 
mixed population, its state of serfdom, and its slowly but 
certainly extending power. 

You will ask, Was there a Bible Society in Russia? 
Yes. It began in the province of Finland, in 1812; and 
the British and Foreign Bible Society made it a do¬ 
nation of 5501., to which the Emperor of Russia added 
5000 roubles from his private purse. This in the follow¬ 
ing year gave rise to its noble sister Society of St. Peters¬ 
burg, which for fourteen years exercised so powerful an 
influence for good over the extensive empire of the czar. 
During these fourteen years, it translated the Scriptures 
or parts of them into seventeen languages, in which they 
had not been previously known. It printed them in thirty 
languages, and circulated them in forty-five. 

In 1806, not one in a thousand of the people of Russia 
could read, and it was generally known a hundred versts 
off, where the treasure of a Bible was to be found. In 
ten years the Russian Bible Society issued more than 
800,000 copies! 

We will give you an interesting extract from the 
speech of Prince Galitzin, at the seventh anniversary of 
the Russian Bible Society: 

“ A most striking feature in the accounts of that vast 

22 


322 


TIIE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


field, in which the word of life is now sowing, is the 
indefatigable zeal exhibited in preparing versions of the 
Holy Scriptures: this is manifest in Russia. In the 
different governments, both near and remote,—in the 
desert, and in the village,—in snow-clad Siberia, and 
upon the mountains of Caucasus and Uralia,—are to be 
found lovers of the word of God, who, of their own ac¬ 
cord, and without selfish views of gain, are engaged in 
the work of translating the Gospels and other parts of 
the Bible into the various languages and dialects spoken 
by the tribes who inhabit Russia,—people who never 
before even heard of this Divine word.” 

An imperial ukase, in 1813, decreed and authorised 
the establishment of the Bible Society; but, alas! in 
1826, another ukase of another emperor appeared to 
suppress it. In the meantime it had circulated at the 
rate of one copy at least to every twentieth family in the 
wide empire. 

The most important benefit conferred on its own 
country by this Institution, while it existed, was the 
bestowinent of the New Testament, and the book of 
Psalms, and the first eight books of the Old Testament, 
in the modern Russ, on the poor serfs, who thereby ob¬ 
tained the knowledge of the wonderful works of God in 
their own tongue. The numbers printed were 324,000. 
This seed of the kingdom seems buried; but the Lord 
can yet quicken it again, and cause it to spring up and 
bring forth fruit to the praise of the glory of his grace. 
A measure of patronage, we are thankful to say, is still 
extended by the czar to the different Bible Institutions 
established in the provinces of the Baltic, and security is 
ensured to the agents labouring on the banks of "the 
Black Sea, and the Sea of Azoph. 

The letters of Dr. Pinkerton, and also of Mr. Paterson, 
during this period, witness to their labours in the northern 
kingdoms of Europe. Could all that they have detailed 
concerning the Book and its Story, in Russia, in the 


RUSSIA.—PRINCE GAL1TZIN. 323 

times when sixteen wagon-loads of Bibles and Testaments 
were dispatched in a month from the capital to different 
parts of the empire, it might move the heart of the pre¬ 
sent emperor to pass a third ukase, decreeing that those 
times should return. 

The following incident may serve as a specimen, though 
it ought possibly to find a place among the records of the 
desire of the heathen to become possessed of the word of 
God : it took place in 1818. 

A member of the St. Petersburg committee sent a copy 
of a single Calmuc Gospel to a Buriat prince, in Siberia, 
a vast district of Asiatic-Russia, to see if his people could 
understand it. The prince replied, that they could not. 
It was the first specimen they had seen of Calmuc typo¬ 
graphy. A long while afterwards, a letter brought the 
pleasing intelligence to St. Petersburg, that the Buriats 
had found the key, and could make out the sense of the 
Calmuc Gospel. His excellency Prince Galitzin then 
wrote to the governor of Irkutsk, begging he would 
appoint two learned Buriats to come to St. Petersburg, 
and accommodate the version of the Calmuc Gospel to 
their native dialect. 

Two of their chiefs, persons of high family, and very 
intelligent and inquisitive, accordingly came, and occu¬ 
pied themselves with the translation of what they im¬ 
pressively called, “ the beautiful sayings of Jesus”; and 
such was the immediate effect of their occupation on their 
minds, that when they turned to pray to their idols, as 
usual, they felt an internal disquietude, of which they 
had never before been conscious, and requested to be 
more perfectly informed of the nature of the Gospel. 

Their letter to their prince, in Siberia, is very affect¬ 
ing : they say— 

“ By your kind endeavours, we have reached the city 
of St. Petersburg, where shines the brightness of the holy 
doctrine, and here we have seen and heard the sacred 
words of the most high and saving God. That we should 


324 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


ever see and hear such things, we never before had an 
idea. 

“ The word of God being so very clear, we cannot 
sufficiently admire it; and we feel that it is truth which 
may be relied upon. This vehicle of a reasonable faith, 
this pearl of a devout heart, although existing 1800 years 
upon earth, has not hitherto come to our Mongols and 
Buriats. 

“ When, by the grace of God, our people shall forsake 
their own faith, and receive the doctrine of Christ, they 
will, under ‘ the light and easy yoke,’ adopt a good con¬ 
versation and good manners. We are fully and firmly 
resolved to receive the doctrine of the saving God, Jesus 
Christ, although we are not yet acquainted with the 
manners and usages of his religion; and when we return 
home we shall find no teacher upon whose breast we could 
lean our head, neither any house of God; yet after the 
conviction we have obtained of the truth of the word of 
God, we can no longer endure the want of it: we must 
abide by this doctrine. 

“We hope that our gracious sovereign, when he shall 
hear that his subjects on the outermost borders of his 
kingdom have adopted Christianity, will favour us with 
wise and worthy teachers.” 

It must be mentioned, that what is called a Protestant 
Bible Society is still existing in Russia, and confirmed by 
the emperor. This was formed, in 1828, to supply the 
Protestants in Russia with the Holy Scriptures. 

TURKEY, EUROPEAN AND ASIATIC. 

The first circumstance that attracted attention to this 
country was an application from Edinburgh, in 1807, to 
assist in procuring Arabic types and paper, for printing 
the New Testament in Turkish. The importance of this 
undertaking was felt from the knowledge of the fact, that 
Turkish was spoken throughout the whole of that empire, 


TURKEY.—ALI BEY’S TRANSLATION. 325 

and in the greater part of Persia, besides being the writ¬ 
ten language understood by all the numerous Tartar 
tribes. The request was readily complied with, and the 
work completed in 1813. 

Two years afterwards, the committee became aware 
of the existence of the very valuable manuscript of the 
Turkish Bible, written by Ali Bey, and lying in the 
museum at Leyden. The history of this manuscript and 
of its revision is as follows : 

Ali Bey, was born in Poland, stolen while a youth by 
the Tartars, and sold as a slave in Constantinople. He 
spent twenty years in the seraglio, became first dragoman 
or translator to Mahomet IV., and was said to understand 
seventeen languages. 

At the suggestion of the Dutch ambassador, Ali Bey 
translated the entire Scriptures into Turkish. The study 
of the sacred volume was not without effect on the trans¬ 
lator. It is recorded, that he entertained thoughts of 
turning to the profession of Christianity, and that death 
only prevented the accomplishment of his design. When 
this version was ready for the press, the Dutch ambassador 
sent it to Leyden to be printed; but it was deposited in 
the archives of the university, among other oriental 
manuscripts, and there it lay for a century and a half, 
apparently unnoticed. 

When its existence became known to the British and 
Foreign Bible Society, they recommended it to the atten¬ 
tion of Dr. Pinkerton ; and he, having satisfied himself 
that it was a worthy translation, placed it in the hands of 
the Baron Von Diez, a Turkish'Scholar of great eminence, 
who with pious delight undertook to revise it. The baron 
says, “ I wish with all my heart that the work may be 
accomplished for the glory of God, and the good of my 
fellow-men. Only one anxious thought sometimes enters 
my mind : I am sixty-three years of age; I shall pray 
God to prolong my life till this work be completed; for, 
should it please Him to call me away in the midst of the 


326 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


undertaking, I certainly know not who would carry it on 
after my death.” 

The venerable senator, however, died when he had 
completed but four books of the Pentateuch, and not a 
little anxiety was felt about providing a suitable successor; 
but, as it was truly observed by Lord Teignmouth, “ The 
Bible Society has never wanted means or instruments for 
the furtherance of its object, whenever they were required 
The necessary editor was unexpectedly found in Professor 
Kieffer, the professor of oriental languages at Paris. The 
Testament was presented in a printed form at the Bible- 
meeting at Paris, in 1819 ; but it was not until 1828, 
that the entire Turkish Bible, with all its corrections, 
was completed at press, of which edition 5000 copies of 
the Bible, and 7000 of the New Testament alone, have 
been issued by the British and Foreign Bible Society. 

Dr. Pinkerton visited Constantinople in 1819. He 
gives an account, in his letter attached to the sixteenth 
Report, of a conversation he had with the venerable 
Paul, the Armenian patriarch of Constantinople. A vast 
Armenian population lies in and around the city, esti¬ 
mated at upwards of 100,000 souls; and the patriarch 
undertook the dissemination of the Scriptures among 
them, and also in Asia Minor. The conversation was in 
Turkish, which is the common language of the Armenian 
population, and the only one properly understood by all 
ranks. 

Dr. Pinkerton also conversed with the patriarch of 
Jerusalem, and secured his promise to circulate the Scrip¬ 
tures among the pilgrims who annually visit the holy 
sepulchre, said to be upwards of 2000 of the Greek com¬ 
munion alone; and as these resort thither from every 
quarter of the East, an excellent opportunity occurs to 
sow the word through their means. The patriarch 
promised to give in charge, to one of the monks who 
attended at the holy sepulchre, a number of New Testa¬ 
ments, in different languages, for distribution. 


INDOLENCE OF THE TURKISH CHARACTER. 327 

There were allotted for this purpose 1000 Modern 
Greek, 500 Ancient Greek, and 500 Arabic Testaments, 
without money and without price, for the poor pilgrims 
assembling round “ the place where the Lord lay.” 

In 1820, Mr. Benjamin Barker, the brother of the 
consul at Aleppo, a gentleman whose knowledge of the 
country and the languages of Syria made the acquisition 
of his services very desirable, became the agent of the 
Society, and still continues to be so. 

Mr. Barker at once commenced his work. Some 
Armenian, Turkish, and Greek Scriptures were readily 
bought up, and many of the Armenian copies found their 
way to Diarbekir. The result of this distribution lay a 
long time concealed; but the success which has since 
attended the labours of the American missionaries in the 
East, especially among the Armenians, is greatly ac¬ 
counted for by the circulation of the Scriptures which 
took place at this period. 

In forming an idea of Turkey in Europe, a country 
which comprehends a space of 200,000 square miles, and 
a population of 15,000,000, we have to think of the 
Turks as its despotic masters, who, while they treat the 
Armenians, Jews, and Greeks, within their territories, very 
scornfully, yet form themselves but a minority in their 
own country. There is said to be so little strength in 
the Turkish empire itself, that it would probably have 
been destroyed long ere this, but for the interference and 
support of other powers. 

Its great rival is Russia, from whose encroachments it 
has, however, a sort of natural shelter in the Balkan 
range of mountains, which the Turks call “ Emineh 
Dagh,” meaning “the mountains that serve as a defence.” 

The indolent repose of the Turkish character is so 
capitally given by Mr. Layard, the discoverer of Nineveh, 
at the close of his last book, that we must transcribe a 
portion of a letter, he says he has in his possession, from 
a Turkish cadi, in reply to some inquiries concerning the 


328 


THE BOOK AND ITS STOKY. 


commerce, population, and remains of antiquity, of an 
ancient city in which he dwelt: 

“ The thing you ask of me is both difficult and useless. 
Although I have passed all my days in this place, I have 
neither counted the houses nor have I inquired into the 
number of the inhabitants; and as to what one person 
loads on his mules, or another stows away in the bottom 
of his ship, that is no business of mine. But, above all, 
as to the previous history of this city! Allah only knows 
the amount of dirt and confusion that the infidels may 
have eaten before the coming of the sword of Islam!—it 
were unprofitable for us to inquire into it. 

“ Oh my soul! oh my lamb! seek not after the things 
which concern thee not: go in peace! After the fashion 
of thy- people, thou hast wandered from one place to 
another, until thou art happy and content in none. We 
(praise be to Allah!) were born here, and never desire to 
quit. Is it possible, then, that the idea of a general in¬ 
tercourse between mankind should make any impression 
on our understandings? Allah forbid ! 

“ Listen, oh my son! There is no wisdom equal to 
the belief in God. Thou art learned in the things that I 
care not for. I praise God, that I seek not that which I 
require not. Thine, the meek in spirit,—Imaum Ali Zade.” 

Besides these lazy lords of the soil, there are in Turkey 
more gipsies than in any other country of Europe, vast 
numbers, as we have seen, of Armenian merchants, and 
great numbers of Jews. 

In 1828, Professor Kieffer finished his most careful 
revision of the Turkish Bible for all these mixed races. 
He corrected the sheets six times, as they passed through 
the press. 

In 1826, Mr. Barker speaks of most of the Armenians 
at Aleppo, and nearly all the servants, knowing how to 
read, though in general very poor; and in 1827, he says, 
that, “ at Smyrna, French officers and other Roman Ca¬ 
tholics daily call for Bibles and Testaments, contrary to 


SEVERE DUTIES OF FOREIGN AGENTS. 329 

the express command of Rome not to do so; jet,” he 
adds, “ the difficulty of supplying such vast tracts of 
country with the word of God can scarcely be conceived 
by an Englishman not acquainted with these barbarous 
regions. It appears an easy task, perhaps, to those who 
are only familiar with their own favoured country, where 
thousands are ready to exert their faculties in aiding the 
circulation of the sacred Scriptures; but an agent of the 
Bible Society, here, must do almost all his work himself, 
unless he can engage a few friends, as a favour, to render 
him a little help.” 

In all his transactions, also, the Bible-agent must keep 
a vigilant eye over his own conduct, so that he does not, 
by some imprudent step, excite the feelings of the autho¬ 
rities against him. “ I could, likewise,” says Mr. Barker, 
“ give a long account of the miseries experienced in travel¬ 
ling here. Under the scorching rays of an eastern sun, 
the traveller is deprived oftentimes of common food and 
water. He arrives late at night at a dirty coffee-house, 
occupied already by a number of savage and fanatical 
Turks; he carries with him the piece of carpet which 
forms his only bed, and all night is attacked by hosts of 
vermin. To this may be added the perils of the journey. 
You may often meet with disbanded soldiers, who scruple 
not to rob you and take away your life,—the fording of 
rivers and torrents,—the plague,—unhealthy climes,—and 
the sad prospect, should you fall ill, of being without 
medical advice or attendance, as was the case with poor 
Henry Martyn, at Tocat.” All these are incidents in the 
life of a foreign Bible-agent in such places as the chain of 
Taurus, or on the skirts of the desert of Arabia,—inci¬ 
dents which make the patient toil of an English Bible- 
collector seem light and easy. To these may be added, 
such separations from home and its felicities, as are re¬ 
corded in Dr. Pinkerton’s letters from St. Petersburg, in 
1820: “ After travelling four days and nights from Mos¬ 
cow, I reached my home yesterday, and to my great joy 


330 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


found my beloved wife and three children in good health. 
I leave the fathers in your committee to judge, for they 
are best capable of doing so, of our gratitude to our 
heavenly Father for this safe meeting, after a separation 
of twenty long months. What changes had taken place 
even in my own family during that period!—changes so 
numerous and great, and many of them so distressing, 
that I was alternately roused to every feeling of regret, of 
sympathy, of thankfulness, and of praise, of which my 
heart was capable ! How often had I looked death in the 
face during this long interval! [He had once slept on a 
mattress infected with the plague.] How many hundred 
horses have borne me along my course! Not fewer than 
eleven different vessels have carried me from continent to 
continent, and from isle to isle, during the last twelve 
months, frequently in distress and sickness, but still pre¬ 
served to praise the Redeemer of men, who suffered not 
a hair of my head to be touched by the hand of violence, 
nor a bone of my body to be broken by any unfortunate 
accident.” 

A foreign Bible-agent needs a heart warmly devoted to 
his work, but it is work that recompenses him for every 
privation. “ New opportunities are constantly occurring 
here,” says Mr. Barker, in 1827, “ for a wider circulation 
of the word of God; and should we be blessed with tran¬ 
quillity, we shall hail the opportunity of beginning to 
diffuse Christian knowledge even among the Turks.” 

Turkey in Asia comprises 450,000 square miles, but 
only a population of 10,000,000, including Kurds and 
Bedouin Arabs,—the old, unchanged, wild men of the 
desert, with whom we began the Story of the Book, and 
including alike Mesopotamia and Palestine, the cradle 
lands of Judaism and Christianity; therefore, Turkey in 
Asia is the most interesting country in the world,— 

“ Over whose acres walked those blessed feet, 

Which eighteen hundred years ago were nailed 
For our advantage on the bitter cross.” 


GREECE.—SOUTH AMERICA. 


331 


It is also the seat of the old Assyrian and Babylonian em¬ 
pires. 

Could England ever do too much to repay to this land 
the seeds of blessing which she has received from it? 

GREECE. 

The work of the Bible Society in Greece was princi¬ 
pally carried on from Malta, by its devoted friends and 
agents, the Rev. W. Jowett, Dr. Naudi, Rev. H. D. Leeves, 
and Mr. Lowndes. Mr. Jowett wrote thus, while Burck- 
hardt was yet alive, in 1819We reap now, in the suc¬ 
cesses of our noble coadjutor, in the formation of the 
Smyrna Bible Society, and in the pledges of co-operation 
given us in various parts of Asia Minor and Greece, an 
ample reward of our first year’s pleasing toil. Ought 
we not to be stimulated and encouraged to redouble our 
labours in this holy work ? Surrounded by three conti¬ 
nents , in each of which there exist such multitudes of souls 
wholly destitute of the word of life, let us forget even our 
past successes, and press forward in the work of faith, 
hope, and charity ! ” 


SOUTH AMERICA. 

We shall now turn to this vast region, and its Catholic 
countries. We can only name them: Brazil, colonised by 
Portugal; Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Chili, and La Plata, 
colonies of Spain. Mexico, in North America, and Cuba, 
an island of the West Indies, were also colonised by Spain. 
It is too wide a field to enter upon, more than to notice 
it as an example of a country, where religion, once known, 
has become extinct, because the Bible was withheldfrom it 
by those who nominally converted it to the faith. The 
people of South America and Japan have, since their so- 
called conversion, been sunk in the darkest superstition. 
“ The light was put under a bushel by the men who in- 


332 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


troduced it into the house, and then the light itself, such 
as it was, perished.” * 

In the eighteenth Report of the Society is the following 
notice:—“The Bible has found a new and unexpected 
inlet into an unfrequented region of South America. A 
chieftain of Patagonia has been discovered in possession 
of a New Testament, printed by the British and Foreign 
Bible Society. He procured it at Buenos Ayres, whither 
he went to trade, and thence conveyed it to his home, 
that he might explain its contents to his fellow-country¬ 
men. 

“ A native of Rio Negro was also so pleased by a copy 
of the New Testament, that he requested more from 
Buenos Ayres. In the region of Rio-de-la-Plata and 
Chili, at Rio-de-Janeiro and Pernambuco, the Spanish 
and Portuguese Scriptures are sought with eagerness, and 
received with gratitude.” 

A small auxiliary had been formed at Buenos Ayres, 
and supplies of the Scriptures transmitted to the Brazils, 
Chili, and Peru, for the labourers in the salt mines at Bona 
Vista, who, seating themselves in the shade, while resting 
from their work at noon, might often be seen reading 
the New Testament most devoutly to one another; but, 
as this is also America’s own Bible and mission field, we 
must leave its detail, with the exception of a quotation 
from the letter of an agent of the American Society, 
and one of Dr. Thomson’s letters, the agent for some 
years of our own Society. 

The American agent says: “What are these people?— 
beings professedly Christian, baptised in the name of the 
Trinity, and yet almost entirely without the Bible! By the 
efforts of this Society and that of England, they have, 
it is true, within a few years received seven or eight 
thousand copies of this holy Book, but, ‘ what are these 
among so many?’—scarcely a single copy to 2000 souls! 

* “Bible of Many Tongues,” published by the Tract Society. 


SOUTH AMERICA. 


333 


Throughout the long road from Buenos Ayres to Chili, 
except a very few in Mendoza, not a solitary copy of the 
Book of God was found; and I more than once presented 
copies to aged priests , tottering over the gram , who told 
me they had never before seen it in their native tongue. In 
the interior of the country, some told me that they never 
before were aware that the Scriptures existed in their own 
language. Yet the Bible is here no longer excluded by 
royal mandates and by papal bulls. The new governments 
are not only willing, but anxious, that the Scriptures 
should have a general circulation. The work here is 
more than sufficient for the united energies of both the 
American and British and Foreign Bible Societies.” 

In anticipating the arrival of some supplies from Vera 
Cruz, Dr. Thomson writes: “ Surely it is a new thing in 
this land, to see twenty-four mules, loaded with Bibles 
and Testaments, making their way up the mountains 
and through the woods into the interior! ” This active 
agent gives a most interesting account of his favourable 
reception in a convent, at Queretaro, where even some 
friars had no objection to receive the lamp for their feet 
in this dark world. They, however, greatly objected, as 
the people do in most Roman-Catholic countries, to the 
omission of the Apocrypha. Dr. Thomson distributed, 
during his journey of two years, 4235 copies. He had 
to contend with great difficulties. The authorities of the 
church first countenanced his objects; but when they 
found the Bible Society’s Bibles without note, comment, 
or apocryphal books, their benevolent feelings were 
thoroughly changed, and an edict was issued prohibit¬ 
ing the Scriptures, and ordering those received to be 
given up. 

In Roman-Catholic countries, this constitutes a great 
hindrance to the Society’s operations up to the present 
day. They could distribute many more copies if the 
different books which compose the Scriptures were inter¬ 
mixed and bound up with the apocryphal books, as in 


334 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


the Roman-Catholic Bibles; but the Society cannot do 
this. It is their fundamental principle to circulate the 
pure word of God, whole and alone. In 1826, they made 
fresh and distinct resolutions to abide by this fundamental 
principle; and, further, not to make any more grants to 
any Bible Society circulating the Apocrypha, which ne¬ 
cessarily closed the connection between the British and 
Foreign Bible Society and many of the Bible Societies 
on the continent. 

To those who read the Bible, the evidence is obvious, 
that the apocryphal books are of mere human com¬ 
position; but the prejudice in their favour abroad, and 
among those who have been educated as Roman Ca¬ 
tholics, would seem to be irresistible; and a suspicion 
arises in their minds, which the priests foster, that our 
Bibles are not perfect, and that, if we have kept back some 
books, we have perhaps also altered those we have printed. 
England can only say, “ May God defend the right! ” 
and in the meantime we must adhere to the principle of 
the old Vaudois Church —The Bible —whole and alone. 

THE MAHOMEDAN COUNTRIES. 

And now we approach the fourth division of the world’s 
inhabitants,—the Mahomedan countries. It is supposed 
that there are eight millions of Mahomedans in Europe. 
The Arabs, the Turks, and the Tartars, have all been, 
for more than a thousand years, the followers of a “false 
prophet,” who wrote a parody upon the Bible, called “ The 
Koran.” There is no society for circulating the Koran: 
the believers in it hide it from the polluting touch of the 
Christian; but we have given them our Bible , in their 
own tongue; and, as Wiclif said to Courtenay,—some 
day “ truth shall prevail.” 

It is almost impossible to calculate with any degree of 
accuracy the number of people by whom Arabic is spoken. 
Arabia itself may have twelve millions of inhabitants; but 


THE MAHOMEDAN COUNTRIES. 


335 


Arabic is also spoken in Syria, Mesopotamia, in part of 
Persia, on the Malabar and Coromandel coasts, in Egypt, 
in Nubia, and in Barbary. 

Arabic is also extensively used, as the language of re¬ 
ligion and commerce, in Western, Eastern, and Central 
Africa; and before the missionaries had reduced some of 
the African dialects to writing, Arabic was the only 
written language known to the natives of that vast con¬ 
tinent. 

Arabic, as the language of the Koran, is venerated and 
studied, from the western confines of Spain and Africa 
to the Philippine Islands, over 130 degrees of longitude, 
and from the tropic of Capricorn to Tartary, over seventy 
degrees of latitude.* 

Henry Martyn felt all this when he undertook his new 
version of the Arabic Testament. “We will begin to 
preach,” said that devoted missionary, “to Arabia, Syria, 
Persia, Tartary, part of India and China, half of Africa, 
all the sea-coast of the Mediterranean and Turkey, and 
one tongue shall suffice for them all." 

It was in Arabia that the great apostle of the Gentiles 
commenced his ministry : “ When it pleased God, who 
called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I 
might preach Him among the heathen, immediately I 
conferred not with flesh and blood, neither went I up to 
Jerusalem, but I went into Arabia” (Galat. 1. 15-17). 

Whatever seed the apostle sowed there, the tares have 
since sprung up and choked it. 

From the year 1811, the Bible Society attempted to 
present versions of the Scriptures, in Arabic, reprinted 
from various previous editions; but much prejudice exist¬ 
ing against them among the Mahomedans, the need of an 
improved translation, so long and deeply felt by the 
Eastern Churches, has at length been met by the Society 
for Promoting Christian Knowledge. This was begun in 


* Butler’s “ Horae Biblicae.” 


336 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


1839, and has been executed at Malta, by Mr. Fares, one 
of the most learned Arabic scholars of the East. 

A version of the New Testament, in Arabic, consisting 
of 10,000 copies, was published by the above-mentioned 
Society, in 1727. The copies of this edition are now 
extremely rare, for none of them were sold in Europe. 
Two, however, are preserved in Cambridge: the greater 
part were sent to Russia, for distribution in Mahomedan 
countries. It must have been some of those Testaments 
which received from an Arab the following welcome:— 
“ He received them almost in a transport of joy, kissed 
them, and then kissed me for their sake. He said that 
the persons who would read them should always wash 
their hands three times before they opened those books.” 

A version of the New Testament, in modern Arabic, 
was printed at Calcutta, in 1846, designed principally for 
the learned and fastidious Mahomedans in all parts of tke 
world, who, it was thought, might have been repelled 
from the study of Scripture by the antiquated style of 
former versions. This translation was made by a learned 
Arabian scholar, the unhappy Sabat. Henry Martyn was 
deeply interested in Sabat, and the production of his ver¬ 
sion ; but he did not live to see its completion. A second 
edition was printed in London, by the Bible Society, in 
1825, and a third in Calcutta, in the following year. 

This version, though not considered perfect where the 
language is spoken, is, by various testimonies, silently 
accomplishing the purposes of God. In Western Africa, 
the natives, on first receiving the copies sent them by the 
Bible Society, “were astonished that a white man should 
have written this book in their favourite language.’’ In 
the eleventh Report it is stated that the ready reception 
of some Arabic Bibles, at Yongroo, in Western Africa, by 
the Mahomedans, encourages a hope that they may be 
more extensively circulated, and has produced an applica¬ 
tion for a further supply. The Rev. G. Nylander says: 
“ I presented an Arabic Bible to the King of Bullom, 


MR. JOWETT’S VOYAGE UP THE NILE. 337 

saying, ‘ This is the Book which makes man wise and 
good : it is God’s word. He speaks to us in this Book 
by Moses, the prophets, and apostles, and by his Son 
Jesus Christ.’ The king recommended to strangers this 
‘ white man’s book,’ Some time afterwards, I went to 
see him, and found about twenty Mahometans sitting 
together in deep conversation, and an aged Mahomedan 
teacher in the midst of them reading the Bible. This 
teacher visited me himself, and likewise begged for a 
Bible, saying, ‘ When I go home, I shall read this book 
to all my people.’ ” 

The Rev. William Jowett wrote an interesting letter 
to the committee of the Malta Bible Society, in June, 
1819, on his voyage up the Nile. He says,— 

“ On my arrival at Esne, the last bishopric southward 
in Egypt, I first opened my small but invaluable treasure 
of Bibles. I waited on the bishop, gave him a copy of 
the Arabic Bible, and begged him to recommend it 
among his people. The price I fixed was twenty pias¬ 
tres, or 10s. English, which was quite a reduced price, 
for the people are so poor, and money is so scarce in this 
country. There was scarcely any need of soliciting the 
bishop’s recommendation, for the people, having seen the 
book, and witnessed the pleasure with which he received 
his present, came immediately to buy, and I could have 
disposed of my whole stock, had I not had to think of 
other towns beside theirs. I could only spare them three, 
and it was really painful to see the eagerness with which 
one after another came to the boat, to ask if I could not 
let them have one copy more : yet I was obliged to think 
of the other churches. 

“ Stopping at Edfu, 1 learnt that this was the last town 
where Christians (of the Coptic Church) were to be found. 
They were very miserable and poor, and, alas I none of 
them could read. It is wonderful how, under such cir¬ 
cumstances, even the profession of Christianity is kept up. 
Yet some of these poor people show their attachment to 


338 THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

their religion, by setting off on the Thursday night, to be 
present at vespers on Saturday evening, and return on the 
Monday every week,—a reproach to many in Christian 
countries, who live within half an hour’s walk of a place 
of worship, and yet seldom attend. 

“ At Essouan, though 1 found persons able to read, yet 
I found no Christians. Here, and far higher up in Nubia, 
are numerous relics of churches and convents, and other 
marks which prove how far Christianity once extended 
in these countries. It will be the blessed work of Bible 
Societies to renew them." 

Afterwards, Mr. Jowett passed a week at Thebes, com¬ 
mencing the study of the Ethiopic, in reference to the Am- 
haric version, under the shade of trees, and amid those 
majestic ■ ruins. He left one Arabic Bible at Luxor, not 
with the priest, to be shut up in the church, but with a 
clerk, called Mallem Jacob, whose nephew of twelve years 
of age could read it,—a boy who loved to sit and read by 
himself; and he trusts that the Bible was fitly bestowed. 

At Kemner, a town on the eastern bank, a Copt, on 
seeing the Arabic Bible, recognised it as the same that he 
had bought of a Jew, in Cairo. He offered Mr. Jowett 
fifty instead of twenty piastres for it ; but this the mis¬ 
sionary refused. Two more copies were sent him to sell, 
and he said the people “ snatched them up so quickly,” 
that he had not one left for himself. He was next morn¬ 
ing favoured with two more copies, as the town was a 
grand thoroughfare for Mahomedan pilgrims. 

The Bishop of Minie purchased the five remaining 
Arabic Bibles; and thus closes the account of the careful 
dispersion of this precious seed, being twenty-five sold in 
Upper Egypt, and fifty-five in Cairo. On his return to 
Cairo, Mr. Jowett was immediately asked if he had any 
more to dispose of.* Further details are equally inviting. 

The number of Arabs, in Egypt alone, is estimated at 


* See Report, 1820 . 


CRUEL DEATH OF AN ARABIAN CONVERT. 339 

from two-and-a-half to four millions. Moorish Arabic, 
into which dialect a very recent translation of the Scrip¬ 
tures has been made, is spoken by ten millions of people 
in Morocco, and by thirty millions in that and the adja¬ 
cent regions, all Mahomedans, and “ not inaccessible to 
the distribution of the Scriptures.” 

Abdallah, an Arabian of noble birth, was converted 
from Islamism by the simple perusal of the Bible. When 
his conversion became known, Abdallah, to escape the 
vengeance of his countrymen, fled from Cabul in disguise, 
but was met and recognised, at Bokhara, by Sabat, the 
translator before mentioned. Abdallah, perceiving his 
danger, threw himself at the feet of his friend, and be¬ 
sought him, by all the ties of their former intimacy, to 
save his life. “ But,” said Sabat, “ I had no pity. I de¬ 
livered him up to Morad Shah, king of Bokhara.” 

Abdallah was offered his life if he would abjure Christ; 
but he refused. Then one of his hands was cut off; and 
a physician, by command of the king, offered to heal the 
wound if he would recant. “ He made no answer,” said 
Sabat, “ but looked up steadfastly towards heaven, like 
Stephen the first martyr, his eyes streaming with tears. 
He did not look with anger towards me ; he looked at me, 
but it was with a countenance of forgiveness. His other 
hand was then cut off; but,” continued Sabat, “ he never 
changed, he never changed ! And when he bowed his 
head to receive the blow of death, all Bokhara seemed to 
say, What new thing is this?” Sabat had indulged the 
hope that Abdallah would recant when offered his life,— 
but when he saw that his friend was dead, he gave him¬ 
self up to grief and remorse. He himself twice professed, 
and twice abjured, Christianity. 

HEATHEN COUNTRIES. 

And now we must turn, at last, to the heathen or 
pagan countries,—the fifth division of the world’s popula- 


340 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


tion, and by far its largest portion,—to China, with its 
350,000,000 ! Japan, with its 25,000,000 ! India, with 
its 130,000,000 ! the greater part of Africa, Australia, 
and Polynesia;—and what has the Bible Society begun 
to do for these ? 

You must perceive, that the first thing it had to do for 
them all was, to procure such a Bible as they could read, 
or to assist and encourage those who were translating it. 
We will tell you what various missionaries said about 
their own work of translation. 

Those who have never attempted to translate from one 
language into another, or whose efforts have been limited 
to rendering a Latin or French fable into English, can 
form but an imperfect idea of the difficulties to be sur¬ 
mounted in making a version of the Holy Scriptures in 
the language of an idolatrous people. Of a fable, or a 
story, it would be sufficient to give the general sense. 
The narrative might be presented in an entirely new 
dress, and yet be equally acceptable; but no such licence 
may be allowed in the translation of the word of God! 
In this case, the minutest shades of thought must be 
transferred, if possible, from the original. 

But how is this to be accomplished in the language of 
a people who have had, up to that time, no ideas con¬ 
formable to the subjects of which the Bible speaks, and 
who have not therefore, of course, any words to express 
such ideas? 

How would you speak of holiness , for instance, to a man 
who has no conception of holiness, or whose only notion 
respecting it is that of having recently bathed in a sacred 
stream ? How would you express the Christian doctrine 
of regeneration to a man who expects to be born again, 
either in the form of an insect or of a loathsome reptile, 
as a punishment for his sins, or in the form of a prince or 
noble, in reward for his good actions? It is only as the 
ideas and experience of any two nations coincide, that 
the words of their languages will correspond. 


MR. CAMPBELL IN SOUTH AFRICA. 


341 


The Rev. J. Campbell, missionary to South Africa, 
wished to tell a party of chiefs that he had made a three 
months’ voyage from England, and had since travelled 
six weeks in his wagon, from Cape Town, to visit them. 
He had no difficulty in relating to them the latter fact, 
for they saw his wagon, and the oxen that had drawn it: 
but how was he to speak of the sea and ships to men to 
whom ships and the sea were unknown ? He was obliged 
to impress into his service what ideas they had. He said 
that before he travelled six weeks in the wagon, he had 
had to cross a large pond,—so large, that it took him 
three moons to come over, which he did in a house built 
in a large howl, which had wings; that there were many 
men with him in the house, who spread out the wings to 
catch the wind, all day and all night, while others guided 
the great bowl. You will not be surprised, when we add, 
that he saw one of the chiefs whispering to another, and 
overheard the words, “ He thinks we are such fools as to 
believe him.” Yet this singular account of a voyage 
across the Atlantic came as near to the truth as the 
language of that people admitted. 

Ho such free translation as this could be allowed in 
a version of the Bible. In the sacred writings, “ holy 
men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy 
Ghost.” A translator of the Scriptures is therefore hound 
to present their thoughts in their own phraseology, as far 
as the idiom of two different languages will allow. 

The spirit of these remarks is contained in letters 
from two missionaries, Mr. Swan and Mr. Stallybrass, 
who went to Siberia, and translated the Old Testament 
into the language of those Buriat Mongolians, of whose 
desire for the Scriptures, in 1818, you recently read. 
These letters are dated, 1833. They say something 
about the style or dialect of their version,—that there 
might be three styles or dialects, among which the trans¬ 
lation of the Buriat Bible takes the middle place. One 
would be a vulgar colloquial style for the people; another, 


342 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


the style for the court, or for learned men; the third, a 
letter-writing and business style, or, perhaps, something 
rather above that, so as to place the subject within the 
reach of any competently-instructed person. The latter 
style they adopted for the Bible. 

Other difficulties arose in translating into the language 
of idolaters: a word must be found for God;—to them, 
“ the unknown God.” In the Buriat translation, the 
missionaries used the word “ Bur chan” as the least ex¬ 
ceptionable term they could employ. It is the word 
used by the Buriats for the true God of Christians, when 
they speak of Him, and it conveyed an idea to their 
minds of a Being above their idols. 

Then, what rule should they lay down for themselves 
as to the rendering of words expressive of weights, 
measures, and coins? Should these be translated by 
the nearest weight, measure, or coin used in the country, 
or should the name of the Roman weight or coin be 
retained untranslated? 

Points like these being agreed upon, the translators, 
together or separately, took their Hebrew and Greek 
Bibles, and read over the passage to be translated, very 
carefully, in the originals. In this case they also con¬ 
sulted Chaldee. Then, with the help of the English 
Bible, and such other modern versions as they were able 
to read, comparing them carefully with such aid from the 
learned as they may have had at hand, they possessed 
themselves of the exact sense of the sacred writers, and 
proceeded to express the meaning, as nearly as possible, 
in the new language. 

Translators sometimes make a list containing every 
word they have translated, the rendering given to it, and 
the passage where it is found ; so that a concordance of the 
Scriptures is formed as they proceed. This renders then- 
work uniform. It ensures that forms of expression, fre¬ 
quently occurring in the original, shall be repeated pre¬ 
cisely in the same terms in the new version. 


RAROTONGA VERSION. 


343 


Afterwards, all is revised again and again, in this case 
with the assistance of one of the most learned and compe¬ 
tent of the Buriats (generally a lama or priest); “and 
with him,” says Mr. Swan, “ we went over the whole, 
verse by verse, and sentence by sentence, attending 
particularly to the idiom, and to the use of appropriate 
terms for tilings not familiarly known. 

“ A fair copy of the manuscript, thus revised and cor¬ 
rected, was then made, and sent to our fellow-labourers, 
who had copies taken for themselves, that they might 
examine and make remarks at their leisure, and have them 
at hand for reference. Some parts of our manuscripts 
have thus undergone repeated inspection and alteration, 
and we consider the final corrections not yet made. I 
shall again revise my portion immediately on my return 
to Siberia.” This letter is dated, 1834. 

The same protracted process has been going on all over 
the world. Morrison, in China; Carey and his learned 
colleagues, in India; Williams, in the South Sea Islands; 
and Moffat, in South Africa, have all, by the labour of 
many years, been creating the material for the spiritual 
treasury of the Bible Society, which it now scatters forth 
with a munificent and liberal hand. The men are almost 
all dead, but their work shall never die. 

Incidental notice has already been taken of the difficulty 
attending Dr. Morrison’s work in China ; and of the Indian 
translations we must further speak, in describing the 
country itself. The following is the testimony, on the 
same subject, of the missionary Williams on the occasion 
of presenting a copy of the Gospel of Matthew, in the 
language of Rarotonga, to Lord Bexley, at the thirty-first 
anniversary of the Bible Society. He said,— 

“ I feel great pleasure in presenting to your lordship 
the first sheets of the Scriptures ever printed in England, 
in a language of the South Sea Islands. 

“ The work of translation has been attended with very 
many hindrances. When the missionaries first went there, 


M4 THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

the people had no written language, no letters, no medium 
of intercourse, no hieroglyphic signs among them, and the 
art of communicating with persons at a distance, by means 
of writing, was a great mystery to them. King Pomare 
was the first person who learned to write; and when it 
was spread abroad that he could talk with the mission¬ 
aries at a distance, by means of a few marks upon a piece 
of paper, the people came from all parts to be eye-wit¬ 
nesses of the wonderful deed. 

“ Our own translation has been effected with all the 
precaution that could be exercised, in order to have a 
version as correct as possible. The work was divided 
among the different missionaries, according to their know¬ 
ledge of the language. Each took his portion to trans¬ 
late, which, when accomplished, was sent round to all the 
others, with a request that they would criticise and remark 
freely upon it. It was then returned to the translator, 
who corrected his work, carefully considering all the re¬ 
marks that had been made. The translation w r as then 
further circulated among the people, and the chiefs and 
more intelligent natives were encouraged to make their 
strictures also. Some of their remarks were of very great 
value to us.” 

The following is a specimen of the Rarotonga version 
alluded to; John 1. 1-5:— 

I vai ana te Logo i muatangana, i te Atua ra old te Logo, e ko te 
Atua oki te Logo. 2 I te Atua ra oki aia i muatangana. 3 Nana i 
anga te au mea katoatoa, kare ua aia i ngere i tetai mea i angaia ra. 
4 Tei roto iaia te ora, e taua ora ra, to te tangata ia marama. 5 I 
kaka mai ana te marama ki te poiri, kare ra to te poiri i ariki adu. 

The same martyr-missionary adds : “It will be under¬ 
stood, that a people of such barbarous character as those 
amongst whom we have been labouring, had no names 
for many of the animals mentioned in Scripture. They 
never saw a horse till we introduced that animal to the 
islands ; they had no sheep or cattle of any kind ; and in 
many islands they had never seen any animals but rats i 


SECHUANA VERSION. 


.345 


which were very numerous. In other islands they had 
pigs in great abundance, and they called the horse ‘ the 
pig that carries the man.’ In translating the Scripture, 
we had to supply names for these unknown animals; and 
for many other things, which they had not, we borrowed 
a word from the English language. In the Polynesian 
dialects, a vowel intervenes between every two consonants. 
This rule made it impossible to transfer the word horse , 
and, besides, the letter s is unknown in their language. 
In this case we went to the Greek, and found the word 
hippos ,—we rejected the p and the s, and constructed the 
word hipo, a word which any native can speak, and any 
learned man might understand. Such a word as baptism 
we left untranslated.” 

Mr. Moffat’s description of the difficulty of acquiring 
the Bechuana tongue, and the circumstances in which it 
was acquired, will cause you to look with reverence on 
the sheets of a Sechuana Bible. The following is a speci¬ 
men of that version ; John 1. 1-5 :— 

Lehuku le le le mo tsimologon, mi Lehuku le le na le 
Morimo, mi Luhuku e le le Morimo. 2 Ye, le le na le 
Morimo mo tsimologon. 3 Lilo cotie li tsa rihoa ka yeona, 
mi ga goa rihoa sepe sa tse li rihiloeh, ha e si ka yeona. 
4 Botselo bo le bo le mo go yeona ; mi botselo e le le leseri ya 
bathu. 5 Mi leseri ya phatsima mo hihin ; mi lehihi le si ka 
ya le cula. 

“ Often,” says Mr. Moffat, “have we all met together 
to read the word of God,—that never-failing source of 
comfort; and, contented with being only the pioneers, 
have poured out our souls in prayer for the perishing 
heathen around. The acquisition of the language was an 
object of the first importance, and this had to be accom¬ 
plished under the most unfavourable circumstances, as 
there was neither time nor place of retirement for study, 
and no interpreter worthy the name. 

“ A few, and but few, words were collected, and these 
very incorrectly. It was something like groping in the 


346 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


dark, and many were the blunders that I made. After 
being compelled to attend to every species of manual, and 
frequently menial, labour for the whole day, working 
under a burning sun, standing m the saw-pit, labouring 
at the anvil, treading clay, or cleaning out a water-ditch, 
it may be imagined that I was in no very fit condition for 
study, even when a quiet hour could be obtained in the 
evening for that purpose; and when I was ready for in¬ 
quiry, the mind of the native interpreter could never be 
commanded at pleasure. 

“ Those whose faculties have been expanded by a Eu¬ 
ropean education, cannot conceive the stupidity , as they 
would call it, of savages, in everything beyond the most 
simple ideas. I have sometimes been obliged to allow 
my interpreter to leave off the task when he had scarcely 
given me a dozen words, it was so evident that the exer¬ 
cise of the faculty of thinking so soon wore out his powers 
of mental exertion. He would then betray by his list¬ 
lessness and vacancy of countenance, that all thought was 
gone, and complain that his head ached, when he always 
received his dismissal for that day.” 

Nevertheless, after ten years of difficulties, surmounted 
by perseverance, there was in existence, by the year 
1830, a Sechuana Gospel of Luke, and then came the 
earnest of the first-fruits. A Matabele captive sat weep¬ 
ing, with this portion of the word of God in her hand. 
“ My child, what is the cause of your sorrow ?” said the 
missionary. u Is the baby still unwell?” “ No ; my baby 
is well.” “ Your mother-in-law?” “ No! no!” said she ; 
“it is my own dear mother who bore me !” and, hold¬ 
ing out the Gospel of Luke, all wet with her tears, she 
added, “ My mother will never see this good word! She 
will never hear this good news. Oh ! my mother, my 
mother, and all my friends! They will die without the 
light that has shone on me! ” 

Mr. Moffat saw his reward when he beheld this love to 
souls kindled in the heart of Afric’s sable daughter ; and 


THE SOLITARY CHRISTIAN AND THE BIBLE. 347 


in 1842, there was a whole New Testament, in Sechuana, 
printed by the British and Foreign Bible Society, and 
some thousands of copies were sent out to the interior of 
South Africa, to supply the wants of a people rapidly 
acquiring the art of reading, and multitudes of them 
already able to read in their own language what the 
Buriats called the “ sacred words of the most high and 
saving God.” 

We must give one anecdote with which Mr. Moffat 
closes his delightful book of missionary labours : “In one 
of my early journeys, I came with my companions to a 
heathen village, on the banks of the Orange river. We 
had travelled far, and were hungry, thirsty, and fatigued; 
but the people of the village rather roughly directed us 
to halt at a distance. We asked for water, but they would 
not supply it. I offered the three or four buttons left on 
my jacket for a little milk, and was refused. We had 
the prospect of another hungry night at a distance from 
water, though within sight of the river. 

“ When twilight drew on, a woman approached from 
the height beyond which the village lay. She bore on 
her head a bundle of wood, and had a vessel of milk in 
her hand. The latter, without opening her lips, she 
handed to us, laid down the wood, and returned to the 
village. A second time she approached, with a cooking 
vessel on her head, and a leg of mutton in one hand, and 
water in the other. She sat down without saying a 
word, prepared the fire, and put on the meat. We asked 
her again and again who she was. She remained silent, 
till affectionately entreated to give us a reason for such 
unlooked-for kindness to strangers. Then the tear stole 
down her sable cheek, and she replied, ‘ I love Him 
whose servants you are ; and surely it is my duty to give 
you a cup of cold water in his name. My heart is full; 
therefore I cannot speak the joy I feel to see you in this 
out-of-the-world place.’ 

“ On learning a little of her history, and that she was 


348 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


a solitary light burning in a dark place, I asked her how 
she kept up the light of God in her soul, in the entire 
absence of the communion of saints. She drew from her 
bosom a copy of the Dutch New Testament, which she 
had received from Mr. Helm, when in his school, some 
years before. * This,’ said she, ‘ is the fountain whence 
I drink ; this is the oil which makes my lamp to bum ! ’ 
I looked on the precious relic, printed by the British and 
Foreign Bible Society; and the reader may conceive 
my joy, while we mingled our prayers and sympathies 
together, at the throne of our heavenly Father.” 

As we must look upon the heathen world in the light 
of the future, and under the head of much land “ yet to 
be possessed,” we will not at this point enter into more 
detail, especially as India must be studied alone, and with 
no wearied attention. For the heathen, the translations 
were going on—are going on still—being revised and re¬ 
revised ; and, as this takes place, they go forth and do 
their work. The “ seed is the word,” and the “ field is 
the world.” 


349 


CHAPTER VII. 

DEATH OF LORD TEIGNMOUTH, AND OF MR. HUGHES.—BIBLE OOL- 
PORTAGE UPON THE CONTINENT.— OSEE DERBECQ.—CHARACTERIS¬ 
TICS OF COLPORTEURS.-THE YOUNG BIBLE-COLLECTOR IN JERSEY. 

-JUVENILE BIBLE ASSOCIATIONS.—INDIVIDUAL EFFORTS TO DIS¬ 
TRIBUTE THE SCRIPTURES.-THE TESTAMENT AMONG THE FISHING 

PEOPLE OF BOULOGNE.—A TRACT THE PIONEER OF THE BIBLE.- 

STATISTICS OF INFIDEL PUBLICATIONS. 

In the year 1834, several of the attached friends of the 
Bible Society—its president, Lord Teignmouth—one of 
its secretaries, Joseph Hughes,—its eloquent advocates 
and supporters, William Wilberforce and Hannah More, 
—were removed from their earthly labours. 

In the oriental affairs of the Society, Lord Teign- 
mouth’s extensive knowledge of the languages, and his 
intimate acquaintance with the manners and sentiments 
of eastern nations (acquired while he was Governor- 
General of India), were of the highest importance. His 
introduction and recommendation to the agents, in their 
travels, never failed to ensure a ready attention, and re¬ 
moved many a difficulty in the way of their foreign 
operations; but the advantage attaching to the rank and 
station of their president was of small account to the 
Bible Society, when compared with the qualities of his 
mind and heart. Many of the earlier Reports were 
written by him ; and to the wide correspondence, carried 
on for several years under his immediate direction, he 
rendered the greatest assistance by the purity of his taste 
and the elegance of his style. 

Mr. Hughes had spent his strength and levoted much 
of his time to the interests of the Society for nearly thi rty 
years, as had Mr. Owen to the time of his death, in 


350 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


1822, without fee or reward. When Mr. Owen died, the 
committee felt how impossible it was to expect from any 
besides these two men, the fathers and founders of the 
Society, a similar sacrifice of time and talent, without 
adequate remuneration, now that the business of the 
Society had increased and was extending itself to all parte 
of the world. Mr. Hughes was therefore obliged to con¬ 
sent to receive the salary which would be allotted to his 
future successor ; but his acceptance of it was accompanied 
by a noble deed of consecration, on his own part, found 
among his private papers after his decease. He says, 
“ I have deliberately resolved to appropriate the whole of 
what I may receive from this source, to the relief of such 
private cases, and the support of such public institutions, 
as shall appear most deserving of my attention and en¬ 
couragement.” But he had little credit given him for 
such secret resolve. 

On one of his journeys for the Society, he found by 
his side, on the coach, a grave and respectable-looking 
person. In conversation on topics of general interest, 
the Bible Society soon became the subject of conversa¬ 
tion. Hi? companion enlarged on its Utopian character, 
and especially on its lavish expenditure, noticing in a 
marked way the needless and extravagant expenses of its 
secretaries, as well as their enormous salaries. No one, 
from Mr. Hughes’s countenance and manner, would have 
conjectured that he was a party concerned. “ But what,” 
he mildly expostulated, “ would be your conclusion, were 
you informed that their services were gratuitous; and 
that, with a view of curtailing as much as possible the 
expense of travelling, they usually, even in very incle¬ 
ment seasons, fix on the outside ,—as one of them is now 
doing before your eyes ? ” It need scarcely be stated, that 
both the fact and the tone in which it was announced, 
with the friendly conversation that ensued, converted an 
enemy into a friend. 

The memorial of the committee to this good man de- 


THE LAST ILLNESS OF MR. HUGHES. 


351 


dares, that all the friends of the Society were agreed to 
reverence and love him; that he had eminently con¬ 
tributed to mature the plans which he had been instru¬ 
mental in originating; and that, by his intelligence and 
piety, as well as by his remarkable freedom from asperity, 
he succeeded, by maintaining a friendly feeling throughout 
its discussions, in preserving the harmony of* its councils. 
The memorial concluded with the transcript of a passage 
from his own beautiful letter of resignation, addressed to 
them when he found himself no longer able to fulfil the 
duties of his office : 

“ The office has, I believe, greatly helped me in the 
way to heaven ; but now my Lord seems to say, * I have 
dissolved the commission ; thy work is done ; yield cheer¬ 
fully to my purpose, and prepare to enter those blessed 
abodes where the labours of the Bible Society shall have 
brought forth more glorious fruits than the fondest hope 
had foreseen.’ ” 

Mr. Foster, the celebrated essayist, and the old and 
valued friend of Mr. Hughes, on hearing “ that his life 
was quivering in the socket,” wrote to him a most sym¬ 
pathising letter, from which, when his son read to him 
the following words,—“ But oh ! my dear friend, whither 
is it that you are going ?— where is it that you will be a 
few short weeks or days hence ?”—Mr. Hughes lifted up 
his hands, as if to give effect to the reply,—“ To heaven, 
I am going ; there to dwell with God and Christ, and the 
spirits of just men made perfect ! ” 

But these devoted friends of the Society would not 
wish us to linger even by the side of their dying beds; 
for when they died, the work went on, and they bore 
their testimony that the Divine word, which it had been 
their joy to circulate during life, was their own strong 
consolation in the hour of death—the light of the border 
land. Mr. Hughes was succeeded in the secretaryship 
by his much-loved friend, the Rev. George Browne, minis¬ 
ter of the Congregational Church, Clapham ; and the 


352 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


result has proved that the unanimous choice of the com¬ 
mittee was made under the direction of Providence. For 
twenty years the Society has been faithfully served, and 
its interests efficiently promoted by his judicious counsels, 
able advocacy, and extensive correspondence. May these 
valuable services be long continued! 

We must now enter without delay on the subject of— 

BIBLE COLPORTAGE UPON THE CONTINENT. 

From the earliest days of the Society, the committee 
sought to extend the circulation of the Bible upon the 
continent, wherever it was possible to find entrance for 
it. There, popery and infidelity reigned : the former, as 
we have seen, hides the Bible ; the latter rejects it: for, 
from all the five classes of the human family which we 
have been considering, there might be gathered a larger 
class than any one , spread among them all —the class of 
infidels, or unbelievers of the written word altogether. 
These abound also, we grieve to know, in our own 
Protestant England ; and their infidelity often arises from 
their want of knowledge. They do not know the history 
of the volume they reject. Few of them have ever read 
the Book itself, except with intent to ridicule it; and 
many have it not in their possession. 

A new agency, at this period, seemed requisite in the 
Roman-Catholic countries, where the common people 
more willingly listen to persons of their own class than 
to a minister of the gospel; and as God “ has chosen the 
weak things of the world to confound the mighty,” 
abundant blessing has been poured out on the labours 
of those who literally “go out into the highways and 
hedges,” with the holy word of God in their hands, to 
distribute it day by day, and who are called Colpor¬ 
teurs. 

The British and Foreign Bible Society began to send 
forth these colporteurs in the year 1837. For seven 


COLPORTAGE ON THE CONTINENT. 


353 


years before that time, 150 of them had been employed 
by the Geneva and Paris Bible Societies, and their sales 
of the Scriptures, at reduced prices, gradually increased, 
and in the year 1835 amounted to nearly 45,000 copies. 
But these colporteurs had circulated religious tracts as 
well as the Bible, and the committee in Earl-street con¬ 
sidered this not to be desirable. Out of 100 persons who 
applied to Monsieur de P., the agent in Paris, to become 
colporteurs, he carefully selected forty-four, and in four 
months they sold 45,000 copies. In the next year, there 
were sold more than 100,000 copies; and the number 
circulated during fifteen years by colporteurs, in France 
alone, amounts in all to almost seventeen hundred thousand 
copies! 

These colporteurs now traverse the continent of Europe, 
—a band of humble but zealous and valiant soldiers of 
the Cross. They carry with them the “ Sword of the 
Spirit,” and their weapon is “ not carnal, but mighty, 
through God, to the pulling down of the strongholds of 
Satan.” 

From the shores of the Mediterranean to the Baltic, in 
Belgium, in Holland, in France, and in Germany, they 
unfurl the gospel banner, and wondrous are the tales they 
tell of its willing reception among those who would never 
have heard of it but through their means. 

Some persons were apprehensive that it would shock 
the feelings even of Protestants, to see the Scriptures 
hawked for sale, from door to door ; others feared it 
would so irritate the Roman Catholics, as to provoke 
collision; but all these fears have “come to nought.” 
The circulation of the holy word, in these countries, was 
a thing to be accomplished; and God has watched over 
his own work from the beginning. His blessing has 
never for a moment forsaken the faithful labourers, and 
they have truly to rejoice over what they have been 
enabled to do in his strength and name. 

A colporteur carries his books in a leathern bag slung 


354 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


over his shoulder. He makes the sale of the Bible his 
only employment. It is not by once offering it that he 
sells it, and he is often obliged to wait patiently the result 
of repeated visits and conversations. 



Colporteur. 


It is calculated that one of these excellent men offered 
the Scriptures and spoke of their contents, to more than 
200,000 persons. He had been colporting eleven years 
before he died, and sold at least 18,000 copies of the 
Scriptures. His name was Osee Derbecq, and he laboured 
in Belgium. The Bible Society never had a more faith¬ 
ful servant. His whole soul was absorbed in his work ; 
his deep piety and profound humility made him a wel- 





DEATH OF DEKBECQ. 


355 


come visiter wherever he went; and many persons who 
had persecuted him, afterwards became his wannest friends. 
His discussions with the Roman-Catholic priests and their 
adherents were full of holy boldness and faithful testi¬ 
mony to the grace of God. 

A colporteur, who visited one of his old fields of 
labour, wrote thus: “ Derbecq had been here, and had 
penetrated, as everywhere else, into the most humble 
cabin. Every moment my heart is pained at the thought 
of his death, when I see the esteem in which he is held 
by the inhabitants of this province, who have been a long 
while waiting his return.” 

In more than one locality, where there is now a 
fiourishing congregation, he was the sower of the seed. 
In June, 1847, he fell into consumption, but he con¬ 
tinued his work till September, 1848, though in much 
bodily suffering. At last he procured an ass to carry his 
books, himself walking by its side as long as he could. 
He died at the age of forty-two, and his death made a 
strong impression on those around him, for it was full of 
bliss. Many attended his funeral. He was called the 
“ king of colporteurs,” and it may be truly said, he died 
a martyr to the Bible Society’s work. 

It has been thought by the committee, that this year 
of Jubilee, a season of which Isaiah speaks as the ac¬ 
ceptable year of the Lord among the Jews, and which 
was to be a season of “ comforting all that mourn,” is a 
very suitable occasion for commencing a fund which shall 
meet the necessities of some humble and retired, but labo¬ 
rious and devoted, servants of Christ, like Osee Derbecq. 

The colporteurs being always chosen from their earn¬ 
est and undoubted piety, it is almost certain that each of 
the seventeen hundred thousand Bibles we have spoken 
of has been accompanied by a prayer. They have all 
likewise been sold , not given , and will therefore, proba¬ 
bly, be more carefully preserved. Seven-eighths of them 
have been of the version of De Sacy, sold in France, 


356 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


proving that the work has been carried on especially 
among Roman Catholics. Alas! many of these Bibles have 
possibly been burnt, but perhaps the greater part have been 
preserved. Our colporteurs frequently report that they 
have been in districts in France where the New Testa¬ 
ment is to be met with in almost every house ; and not a 
month passes in which one or the other does not discover, 
in various parts of the country, some few individuals or 
whole families who unite for the purpose of reading the 
Bible or Testament, to their great comfort. 

One very remarkable fact concerning the colporteurs 
is this, that, with but few exceptions, they have formerly 
been Roman Catholics, and have become zealous friends 
of the Bible through reading copies of the Scripture 
purchased by themselves of some colporteurs. There are 
continual changes upon the staff, as it is called,—from 
280 to 300 individuals having been employed since the 
British and Foreign Bible Society took up the work, and 
among these there have been scarcely a dozen who have 
not proved equal to the requirements of their calling. 
All the rest have, in zeal, devotion, and fidelity, been 
ornaments to the gospel; and in the esteem of the public 
generally, the name of colporteur signifies a man of order 
and of peace, as well as a good and upright man. 

Sometimes the French colporteurs are addressed in this 
way: “ As for you, you are men of the Bible; you never 
speak of anything else: you certainly are not men of 
this world. Whether Louis Napoleon or Louis Philippe 
sits upon the throne, it matters very little to you; you 
are comical fellows; you seem as if you belong neither 
to the republic, the empire, nor to anything else ; and, 
to look at you, and to listen to you, one might almost 
say that God is always before you, and that it is He who 
governs. How is this ? Explain yourselves.” 

And then they do explain themselves : they stand by 
many a dying bed, and are brought into sympathy with 
many a strange and solemn scene; they sow the good 


THE BIBLE COLLECTOR. 


357 

seed through the field of’ the world, and they often reap, 
years afterwards, the seed they have sown. 

The work of the colporteur was never intended to in¬ 
terfere with the work of the collectors for Bible Associa¬ 
tions, whether at home or abroad. It consists in selling 
Bibles at once , as many as he can in a day. The work 
of the Bible-collector is, as we have seen, to receive the 
weekly penny from those who at one time can spare no 
more. It is carried on, of late years, very chiefly by asso¬ 
ciations of ladies, who find many an opportunity of doing 
good both to the souls and the bodies of those whom they 
thus repeatedly visit. Both orders of agency are excel¬ 
lent ; and both are found necessary, even in England. 

In 1845, it was thus reported: “ The county of Radnor, 
containing a population of 25,000, has only five Bible 
Societies within its limit; and of these five, two have little 
more than an existence in name. A well-chosen colpor¬ 
teur commenced his operations at the close of harvest, 
in one of five districts into which the county was divided, 
and within forty-six days he sold, at cost prices, in the 
eight parishes comprised in the district, one thousand and 
eighty-five Bibles and Testaments, among a popula¬ 
tion of 5804, being in the proportion of a copy to every 
family. He was a man of good muscular strength, as 
well as piety; he walked about fourteen miles a-day: 
the farmers and labourers purchased with avidity, some¬ 
times to the extent of a copy for every individual ca¬ 
pable of reading; all were astonished at the cheapness 
of the books, and many were the blessings implored on 
those by whom he was employed.” 

Notwithstanding all the Bibles that have been supplied 
in England, experience proves, that this history of the 
county of Radnor, in 1845, would be repeated, by the use 
of the same agency, in many an extensive tract of country 
and in many a lonely hamlet, even in this year 1853. 


358 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


LADIES’ ASSOCIATIONS. 

But that you may not think that the whole work of the 
Society is or can be done by colporteurs, and that those 
who are ignorant of it may have an idea of it as at this 
time carried on with zeal and perseverance by upwards 
of 20,000 ladies in the British empire, we will give you 
a few particulars concerning a Bible-collector, in one of 
the Channel islands, which may induce some of you to 
follow her example. 

Attached to the second Report of the Bible Society, 
in 1806, is the following letter from the Rev. F. P. of 
Jersey:—“A member of your Society has encouraged 
me to lay before you the state of the island of Jersey, 
as it respects the want of Bibles. I need not tell you 
that by far the greater part of the inhabitants speak 
French, and nothing but French, so that if they wish to 
read their Bible, it must be in that language; but war has 
interrupted all communications with Holland and other 
parts, from which we had our Bibles, so that they are ex¬ 
ceedingly scarce. I believe there is not one to be bought in 
the whole island. I know many religious families who 
are without it. They have not even-the New Testament; 
and though they would give any money for it, it is all in 
vain. I have known old second-hand Family-Bibles to 
sell at from two to four pounds sterling, so that none but 
the rich can afford to buy them, while the poor people 
are greatly in want of them.” 

In answer to this letter, the committee directed 300 
copies of the French Testament to be forwarded to their 
correspondent, to be disposed of on terms suited to the 
circumstances of the people. He preached in French to 
2000 hearers, who had not amongst them 200 Bibles, and 
from the pulpit told them, that it was to the British and 
Foreign Bible Society that the churches must now look 
for a supply of the word of God. 


THE MINISTER’S DAUGHTER OF ST. HELIER’S. 359 

Other grants of New Testaments followed this, and 
still, in a letter dated 1809, he says, “ I wish you could 
have seen the silent tears of joy fall from many an eye, at 
the thought that one day they would be possessors cf the 
invaluable treasure. Many are anxiously waiting for the 
completion of the Old Testament in French. When it is 
finished, oh ! pray forget not Jersey!” 

It is a very interesting fact, that most of the families in 
Jersey are descended from refugees who escaped from the 
religious persecution in France. It is related of them, 
that when they had to pass the gens-d’armes on the coast, 
they always tried to hide their children, and one of the 
means employed was placing them in baskets well covered 
with fruit. They are therefore a part of the Protestant 
Church of the Book, and it was delightful to the Society 
to multiply to them their ancient treasure. The minister, 
whose letters we have quoted, married an English lady, 
a true Christian, who established a Ladies’ Bible Associa¬ 
tion in Jersey, in 1807 or 1808,—one, therefore, of the 
very earliest of these institutions which worked silently 
and without official notice, probably paying its proceeds 
into the hands of the gentlemen’s committee. 

A ladies’ auxiliary, under high patronage, was esta¬ 
blished in 1818, and its president describes Jersey, shortly 
afterwards, as “ our little country still thirsting for the 
word of life.” 

But it was in the spring of 1837 that some friends of 
the Bible Society, who visited Jersey, found the amiable 
and interesting daughter of the good minister above men¬ 
tioned following in the steps of her father, who was yet 
living, and of her mother, who had been removed by 
death, and very earnestly devoted to the work of spread¬ 
ing the Scriptures in the romantic little isle, where she 
had been born. These friends say : 

“We once or twice accompanied Marie in her visits to 
her Bible-district, in the streets and lanes of the crowded 
town of St. Helier’s, where the scenes are more foreign 


360 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


than English, and where she had to cope with the effects 
of that Catholic superstition, which must be seen in detail, 
in order to appreciate the difficulty of pouring light upon 
its darkness. 

“ From many and many a door we turned away, where 
the offer of the word of life was rejected with anger and 
scorn. The laugh of derision followed us up stair and 
alley, or the look of surprise varied the vacant face of 
ignorance, knowing nothing, and willing to know no¬ 
thing, but what the priest ordained. Marie spoke fluently 
in French, or in patois, when the latter only was under¬ 
stood, and her English was equally ready. Three most 
delightful visits were paid, in one morning, to persons 
who had been led by this young messenger of mercy to 
seek pardon for their sins, and lay hold on the hope of 
heaven. 

“ One very aged Frenchwoman welcomed her footstep 
with all the ardour of her nation. We shall not forget 
that large old-fashioned apartment, with its deep recesses 
and its earthen floor,—the fine figure of its inmate, up¬ 
right as a dart, though incapable of moving from her 
chair,—the delicately-plaited and snowy cap and ker¬ 
chief,—her knitting cast aside, on which, although blind, 
she was constantly employed,—and both hands at once 
held out to her ‘ chere, chere, petite Ma’amselle Marie,’ 
so often the cheerer of her lonely home. Marie came 
frequently to read to her of Jesus, and the old woman 
said, she had taken Him into her heart, and that He was 
always with her. She looked very happy, and perfectly 
contented, and seemed to live, from visit to visit, on the 
words she remembered from the book. 

“ In another part of her district, at Le Dicq, Marie 
had established Sunday-schools, where she and her sister 
had gathered together some children in a room on the wild 
and rugged sea-shore,—a ragged school,—before ragged- 
schools were thought of in London ; and after their early 
labours, on the Sabbath, in the large schools attached to 


MARIES PERSEVERANCE AND DEATH. 361 

her father’s church, and attending morning service, they 
■were accustomed to snatch a slight meal, and walk off in 
all weathers to their new and untamed pupils here, who 
must be taught to read before they could receive the 
Bible, and with whom it was evident that persevering 
love and energy would soon be successful. 

“We paid a visit with her to the Bible committee. 
She had many home responsibilities, which were very 
sweetly fulfilled,—and she was the light of the house¬ 
hold to her widowed father; but these private duties did 
not prevent her from acting as secretary to more than 
one benevolent institution; and of the Ladies’ Bible So¬ 
ciety, she was, steadily and quietly, the moving spring. 
While others might take the honour and the appearance 
of precedence, she was content to work untired, and to 
bring all she could persuade by influence and example to 
work too, yet herself claiming no praise and no observ¬ 
ance. Her heart and soul were in the service, and her 
zeal appeared only equalled by her self-knowledge and 
her humility. 

“We told her one day that she was born to be a mis¬ 
sionary, when she replied, ‘ It must be a missionary to 
France; but I have work enough in Jersey for many 
years to come. God has placed us, you perceive, be¬ 
tween two great nations,—England and France. He has 
given us the government of the one, the language of the 
other, and the privilege of unrestrained intercourse with 
both; and I often think why this is. England has the 
gospel, and now gives it to us; France has it not; but 
England has not the language of France, and so cannot 
speak to her in her own tongue. Jersey ought to preach 
the gospel to France. The light which is in her was 
brought from France. I wish I ever might spread Bibles 
there.’ ” 

God did not suffer this desire to be realized. Ere she 
reached her twenty-second year, He took her to himself, 
to the great sorrow of all who knew her. She died of 


362 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


consumption on the 21st of August, 1839, the day twenty 
years after her mother, who had been carried off by the 
same insidious disease; and now, father, mother, and 
daughter, are, we doubt not, together in heaven! 

But although these first sowers of the good seed in 
Jersey are no more, the Bible Society continues its work, 
and the seed has sprung up, and brings forth fruit abun¬ 
dantly. Instead of the one association in which Marie 
laboured, there are now fourteen associations, a ladies’ 
branch, and an auxiliary,—each association having eight 
or twelve collectors, besides its officers : upwards of 3000 
Bibles have been distributed by them. 

JUVENILE ASSOCIATIONS. 

There is one more department of the agency now 
at work for the Bible Society, which it is particularly 
pleasant to contemplate. Children were among its earliest 
friends; and in associations organised for them by their 
teachers, in schools and in families, they have always 
contributed to its funds with delight. They are beings 
who are apt to interest themselves in all that is going on 
around them, and in their little hearts they always keep 
their fathers’ jubilees: “ Seest thou not what they do in 
the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem r The 
children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, 
and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the 
queen of heaven” (Jer. 7. 17, 18). If, therefore, the 
children of idolatrous parents help them , what is to pre¬ 
vent that the children of those who love God’s word, 
and seek to circulate it, should help them also? Jesus 
said, “ Whoso shall not receive the kingdom of God as a 
little child, shall in no wise enter therein.” The Story 
of the Book of God is a story for all ages. It embraces 
details almost too many and too mighty to be rendered 
down to the ear of restless childhood; yet it has been our 
highest ambition so to write it that a child might under- 


JUVENILE BIBLE ASSOCIATIONS. 


363 


stand it; and if we have succeeded, it will work its own 
results. More children will come forward, with the ardour 
and simplicity of their age, to help forward this great work 
of God. 

Every child and young person can help. There are 
fifty-four Juvenile Bible Associations entered as tribu¬ 
taries on the books of the British and Foreign Bible 
Society. Some of them have very pretty names, such as 
“Twig,” “Blossom,” “Kivulet,” “Drop,” and “Crumb;” 
and they are spread over fourteen or fifteen of the coun¬ 
ties of England. There is also one in Jersey, and seve¬ 
ral in Wales. In Manchester there are four “ Blossoms,” 
one of which has in the last year contributed the hand¬ 
some sum of 32 l. 95. 9d. to the funds of the Society. 
The different Juvenile Bible Societies of Manchester, 
altogether, have raised this year the sum of 637. 2s .; and 
the money they collect now is not their chief benefit, 
for it is hoped that many faithful and persevering little 
labourers will thus be trained and raised up to support 
the Bible Society in days to come. From among those 
who are now children, must arise the future secretaries, 
and translators, and home and foreign agents; and the 
present small donations which they bring will be pro¬ 
mises and pledges of larger donations in riper years. It 
may be that some few will inherit fortune and estate; 
and if they have belonged to an early “ Blossom Bible 
Society,” it may influence their hearts to be the liberal 
donors of the thousand guineas at a time, which can 
nowhere be better cast than into the treasury for the 
distribution of God’s word. Others will give time and 
talent, as they may be needed. 

They will be led to think of the wide wide world, 
and its want of the Bible, and perhaps themselves make 
some sacrifices to aid its distribution. In the Moravian 
schools at Fulneck, numbers of the young people ab¬ 
stained altogether from sugar, to give the amount allowed 
them in lieu of it to the Bible Society fund. 


364 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Every child who can save, or give, or lead others to 
give, but fourpence a week to a Bible box or association, 
may every week consider that this will be the means of 
giving the four Gospels, if not a whole New Testament , to 
a poor Chinese. These little “Twig” and “Blossom” 
Societies have their regular meetings for business, their 
account-books, and their accounts duly rendered in ; and 
as children at school are sometimes lavishly supplied with 
money by indulgent parents, this opens a source for 
legitimate investment of much that might be thought¬ 
lessly and selfishly spent. 

One of the domestic agents of the Bible Society says 
that he had the pleasure of exhibiting what is com¬ 
monly called “The Bible Society Map”* to the pupils 
under the care of Mrs. E. of Devizes, and that he shall 
not soon forget the eager attention and deep feeling with 
which the young ladies surveyed the whole. The moral 
state of the population of the globe was explained by the 
aid of the colours selected for the purpose. All were 
struck with the very small space coloured pink , to re¬ 
present Christianity, and the very large proportion of 
blue and yellow, showing what countries are still Ma- 
homedan and Pagan. It was observed, that the great 
work in which the Bible Society is engaged is to change 
the moral state of the world, to obliterate the blue and 
the yellow, and to pink, that is, to Christianise, the whole 
population of the earth. Soon after the little lecture 
was finished, and while sitting at the breakfast-table, a 
knock at the door was heard, and a little girl came in 
and placed a paper containing something heavy in Mr. 

-’s hand, without saying a word. It contained a 

note, of which the following is a copy: “The young 
ladies of Mrs. E.’s establishment beg Mr.-’s accept¬ 

ance of the enclosed trifle towards pinking the world — 
August, 1840.” 


* See page 194. 




“LES MATELOTS” OF BOULOGNE. 365 

The “trifle” amounted to the sum of twenty-three 
shillings, contributed of their own accord towards an 
object well ^worthy of it. May many schools do likewise 
in this Jubilee Year! They had afterwards the gratifica¬ 
tion to learn that this money would provide at that time 
twenty-three Testaments and more than nine Bibles. It 
would now provide many more. 

As this chapter has been devoted to a consideration of 
the agencies at work for the Bible Society, we must not 
close it without a notice of those efforts which are put 
forth from time to time, by individual friends, not offici¬ 
ally connected with the Society, who have scattered the 
seed of the word where they have resided or travelled. 
The following is but a specimen of one among thousands 
of opportunities occurring, to those who have the object 
always in view, of circulating the Scriptures; and as we 
have given many instances of the way in which mission¬ 
aries and the friends of education co-operate with the 
Bible Society, this incident will likewise show how a 
tract will often act as a pioneer to the Bible. 

You have heard of Boulogne-sur-Mer; and any of our 
readers who may have passed through that town on their 
way to Paris, or may have resided there for awhile, will, 
perhaps, know, that a separate portion of it consists of the 
dwellings of the fishing-people, who devote themselves 
especially, during the season, to the catching, curing, and 
sale of herrings. Les Matelots , as they are called, are a 
very interesting race. They have a peculiar costume,— 
the women wearing short, thick, scarlet or striped skirts, 
and dark-blue jackets, with a beautifully-plaited cap. 
Their best suit is considered their fortune; and the chief 
piece of furniture in their cottages is a large wardrobe to 
contain the riches of their dress, which the girls buy as 
they earn money by selling fish, or carrying boxes and 
parcels on shore from the steam-boats. They are a very 
hardy and industrious race, and are continually making 



366 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


or mending nets for their husbands and brothers, while 
they are following their occupation at sea. 

In their way, and according to their own estimation, 
they are very pious. They pray perpetually to the holy 
Virgin for safety in their perilous vocation; and, on re¬ 
turning from a voyage, they go and kneel at the crucifix 
on the top of the cliffs, and offer thanks for their preser¬ 
vation. They are very ignorant, because no one teaches 
them; but many are ready to receive, if it were offered, 
the true light of the gospel. 

One of these fisher-girls, of a very interesting appear¬ 
ance and kind disposition, was in the daily habit of bring¬ 
ing water from the fountain, for the use of an English 
family, who had taken up their residence for three 
months in a house by the sea-side, not far from the fish¬ 
ing-town: her name was Genevieve. One evening she 
saw the lady at the window, and, somewhat to her sur¬ 
prise, asked her if she would be so kind as to read a little 
to her, as some English lady had done before. She said 
that she liked histories, but had never been taught to 
read, otherwise she would not ask the favour. 

The lady was glad to comply with her request. She 
read to her some chapters in the New Testament, a book 
that Genevieve had never seen, and offered to read a por¬ 
tion of it every day, if she would come to hear it. 

After some days, the fisher-girl said that she had been 
telling her father about this reading, that he could read, 
and that he wished to have the book. The lady lent her 
a French New Testament to take home with her, and the 
fisherman read thirty pages, on first sitting down to it, 
aloud to his family, and then he took it to sea with him. 

It is usual for several fishermen to own a boat amongst 
them, and this man read the New Testament to his part¬ 
ners when they were out at sea, being particularly pleased 
with those histories which are given in the Gospels, of the 
Apostle Peter and his companions fishing. 

After the glad reception of this one Testament, Gene- 


BOULOGNE-SUR-MER. 


367 

vieve was asked if she knew of any one else among her 
people who wished for a Testament in their own lan¬ 
guage. She said she thought she did; and half-a-dozen 
Testaments being procured. from the depository of the 
British and Foreign Bible Society, in the Rue de L’Ecu, 
the fisher-girl accompanied the lady up and down the 
alley in which she lived. That was a very different 
alley from an alley in London. It stretches from the 
top to the bottom of the steep cliff; and the houses on 
either side, being built one above another, are reached by 
flights of broad stone stairs, each landing-place having its 
own sea-view. Here Genevieve’s mother was found spin¬ 
ning the string which they afterwards make into nets. 

At every door was offered a New Testament. Two 
were bought, and four more thankfully received ; twenty- 
eight were afterwards disposed of, and in three or four 
houses the lady was eventually asked to come and read 
to them. The best time for this was found to be on 
the Sabbath afternoon, when the women came to listen 
in groups of eight and ten. This is their only leisure 
afternoon of the week, when they generally put on their 
gayest dress and go up the cliffs to the crucifix, “ pour 
prier Dieu, et adorer la Vierge.” The visiter met with 
no single instance of incivility in all her intercourse with 
this “ Billingsgate ” of France ; and it appeared to her that 
if God intends mercy to this large town, it is amongst 
these despised “esclaves” of the population that it will 
be first received. 

Another incident occurred in the same year, 1847, 
which made a good Frenchwoman say, “ The Lord’s time 
is come, and He is going to work among those Matelots.” 

A poor woman, who lived in the fishing-town, had a 
tract lent to her called “ Le Bon Berger.” She lent it to 
a cousin, an old fisherman past work, and he, reading it 
with great interest, gave it a new name. He called it 
“ La Brebis Egarde.” He read it to his wife and daughter, 
and lent it to his friends, saying, “if this was the new 


368 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


religion, they would find it better than the old one.” 
This was because the tract led the people directly to 
Jesus, as the Good Shepherd for lost sheep, and not round 
about, to ask for the prayers of the Virgin Mary. 

It was wonderful, therefore, to see how it appealed to 
the common-sense of the people! It was read to twenty 
of them at once, by a little boy, who was a good, clear, 
loud reader; and then it came back to the old woman 
who had been its original lender; but it never stayed at 
home. First one borrowed it, then another: it was read 
by the crews of five of the boats, and at last the lady 
who was distributing the Testaments heard of it, and she 
borrowed the dirty treasure, and read it with deep interest. 

It was a simple allegory, and a fresh proof of the 
power of allegory over the common mind. It depicted 
the tender love of Christ to a lost sheep,—his living to 
seek it, and dying to save it,—in a style particularly cal¬ 
culated to please the French. 

This tract continued to go, dirtier and dirtier, from 
house to house, ever more welcomed, and always making 
way for the Testament, which it seemed the instrument 
designed to do. When it was re-claimed one day from a 
fine old Pharisee, who had said, “ she had done so many 
good works all her days, that God had never given her 
an hour’s illness,” she was heard to say with tears in her 
eyes, “ Mais je suis cette brebis egaree.” A neighbour of 
hers had earnestly desired to have it, saying she would 
then take it and read it from house to house, all through 
the fishing-town. 

A hundred copies of this tract were afterwards put into 
circulation among the fishing people. In the early spring 
of 1848, the fishing-boat in which Genevieve’s father and 
brother were partners, went down one stormy night, with 
all the crew,—so that the Testament and the tract were 
sent to them in the last year of their lives: they read 
both diligently; and let us hope that they read to the 
salvation of their souls. 


PERNICIOUS INFIDEL PUBLICATIONS. 369 

Now this fact may present a picture of the state of 
thousands of other districts and towns in Roman-Catholic 
countries. The poor people would hear the gospel if 
they might. How vast an account of souls those have to 
render at God’s awful bar, who leave them alone in their 
ignorance, or only fill their ears with the rubbish of 
popish miracles and saints’ lives, instead of the pure word 
which God has given to guide all to Himself, as “the 
Good Shepherd,” we scarcely dare to think. 

And the friends of the Bible had need awake to their 
responsibilities! They have on their side God and his 
word, and the promise that “truth shall prevail”; but 
the prince of the power of the air has also his active 
agents, and in numbers they far surpass the soldiers of the 
Cross. He has, it is true, no mighty organisation like 
the British and Foreign Bible Society, for circulating 
any one book of falsehood that should deny our Book of 
truth; but he has earnest missionaries and zealous edu¬ 
cators, and he causes to be issued an astounding total of 
tracts and newspapers that serve his purpose. He has 
until now maintained in China and India his giant fabrics 
of idolatry. He is strengthening at every point the once 
crumbling shrines of popery, and he has begun to give 
to infidelity that spirit of co-operation and union which 
was declared to be “ the only thing wanting to make it 
the most terrible enemy of the Church of God.” * 

The writer of a book called “ The Power of the Press,” 
informs us, that eleven millions seven hundred and twc 
thousand copies of absolutely vicious and Sabbath-break¬ 
ing newspapers are circulated every year in Great Britain, 
while the sum total of the issue of Bibles and religious 
tracts does not amount, in a year, to one-third of this 
number. 

There are about sixty cheap periodicals issued every 
* “ Essay on Popery and Infidelity,” by Mr. Douglas of Cavers. 



370 THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

week, of a positively pernicious tendency. Some of them 
issue 100,000 a-week, some 80,000, some 20,000, having 
amongst the whole a yearly sale of six millions two hun¬ 
dred and forty thousand. 

There are, besides these, infidel and polluting publica¬ 
tions which make lovers of the Bible wonder where their 
readers can be found, but which nevertheless have a yearly 
circulation of ten millions four hundred thousand! 

And there are yet others so intensely wicked, that the 
rest denounce them as wicked, and which can only be 
sold by stealth, whose issues this writer specifies as five 
hundred and twenty thousand annually! 

He sums up his totals thus: 

Ten stamped papers . . . 11,702,000 

Six unstamped papers . . . 6,240,000 

Sixty pernicious periodicals 10,400,000 
Worst class. 520,000 

Total . . 28,862,000. 

And this is only in our own Christian country. Week 
after week, year after year, does this tide of evil roll on : 
and what does the Church of God do to meet it ? Adding 
together the annual issues of Bibles, Testaments, religious 
tracts, newspapers, and periodicals of every kind, we find 
a total of 24,418,620, leaving a balance on the side of 
evil of, alas! four millions four hundred and forty-three 
thousand three hundred and eighty! * 

It may still be less generally known, that free-thinkers, 
as they call themselves, have now instituted a confer¬ 
ence-meeting for examining the progress of their various 
societies, in different parts of the kingdom. They, too, 
have perceived that “union is strength,” and from Bolton, 
Blackburn, Glasgow, Bradford, Manchester, Newcastle- 
upon-Tyne, Nottingham, Paisley, Preston, Stafford, and 
Sheffield, they, too, have their reports of each other’s 


See “ Church in Earnest,” pp. 94, 97 



NEED FOR CHRISTIAN PERSEVERANCE. 371 

proceedings. This is a new feature of the times, and, sad 
to say, the paper which makes known their results, and 
gives union and emphasis to their efforts against the Bible, 
is conducted with calm determination, not with low abuse, 
by a man who was once a scholar in a Sunday-school. 

There are annually issued— 

Of infidel publications 12,200,200 
Of atheistic ditto . . ' 624,000 

Of popish ditto . . . 520,000 

Making a total of . 13,344,200. 

All these have their active distributors: they are met with 
in the railway-carriage and on the steam-boat, scattering 
industriously and gratuitously those seeds of evil with 
confident expectation, that, when those are well sown, 
England will be revolutionised. 

Let us arise, then, against this host, to the help of all 
that is holy, and especially to the diligent dissemination 
of the word of God, which shall overcome them all—“ to 
the help of the Lord, against the mighty! ” 


CHAPTER VIII. 

JUBILEE REVIEW OF THE HEATHEN COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD,- 

THE BIBLE IN INDIA.-IN CHINA : EXTRAORDINARY RELIGIOUS 

MOVEMENT THERE : SEW-TSEUEN, THE LEADER OF THE INSUR¬ 
GENTS.-JAPAN, IN ALL PROBABILITY, WITHOUT A BIBLE.- 

LOOCHOO ISLANDS. 

Let us now take up the forty-ninth Report of the British 
and Foreign Bible Society, issued in this year 1853, and 
see if we think it any longer a “ dull book,” being better 
prepared to understand it. 

Our Jive threads must also be resumed once more, on 




372 


THE BOOK AND ITS 6TGKY. 


which to string the facts of chief importance that may be 
collected from our “ Jubilee Review”; but we may be 
permitted to reverse their order, and take, first, the 
heathen and pagan countries of the world, and we shall 
therefore open this Bible Report at page 79, upon— 

INDIA. 

“ The Indian empire of Great Britain,—that vast appen¬ 
dage to an island throne,—is not merely a country but a 
continent. In ancient days it contained numerous inde¬ 
pendent kingdoms, stretching 1800 miles in length, and 
1300 in breadth. It includes all varieties of climate, 
scenery, and soil. The giant range of the Himalayas, 
capped with eternal snow, the fertile plains of the river 
Ganges, and the high table-land of the Mysore, alike rank 
among its territories. Its 130,000,000 of people speak 
thirteen different languages. Its lowland plains produce 
the cheapest food of various kinds, and the warmth of 
its climate requires but scanty clothing. Its mineral trea¬ 
sures are abundant, and it has giant forests of the most 
useful trees. Its noble rivers furnish a ready highway 
for trade, and the cheapness of labour brings its vast pro¬ 
duce into the market at a low rate. The taper fingers 
of its natives can carve exquisitely in ebony and ivory, 
and their shawls, their muslins, and their jewellery, are 
yet unrivalled in all the world. Its population includes 
the clever and insinuating Brahmin, the submissive and 
patient Sudra, the poor outcast Paria, and the indolent 
Mussulman. It includes the coward and cunning Bengali, 
the spirited Hindustani, the martial Sikh and Mahratta, 
the mercantile Armenian, the active and honest Parsee, 
the busy Telugu, and the uncivilised tribes who now in¬ 
habit the hill forests, but who once roamed as lords over 
the outspread plains.” 

These millions of people are chiefly idolaters, and caste 
divides them into sections, each set against the other; but 


THE BIBLE IN INDIA. 


373 

they yield implicit obedience to the dictation of their 
priests, and the assertions of their shastras or holy books ; 
—for the greater part of this land is yet unprovided with 
teachers of the gospel. 

To obtain an idea of the extent of India, we must 
remember, that, if Russia be kept out of mind, it is as 
large and populous as all Europe; and to realize the 
state of its missions, we must, at present, think of one 
missionary to every 350,000 people!—no more! Let 
France be thought of as Bengal, and suppose that France 
were utterly heathen, and that Christian benevolence 
sent thirty missionaries for Paris and the suburbs, two 
for Guienne, a few for Dauphiny, but none for Brittany, 
Normandy, Burgundy, Lorraine, Gascony, Champagne, 
or Languedoc ; then let Bavaria be thought of as Bundel- 
kund, Sweden and Norway as Oude, Great Britain and 
Ireland as the various hill tribes, Italy as the Nizam’s 
country, and Turkey and Greece as the Punjaub and 
Scinde, almost altogether unsupplied with Christian 
teachers;—you need not wonder that scoffers return 
home from their Indian travels, and say, “ they never 
met with a single missionary or a single convert.” There 
has been a strange neglect of India hitherto as a mission- 
field. In the West Indies there are not less than 350 
missionaries to instruct a population of 2,500,000, but 
in India there are but 403 missionaries to 130,000,000 
of people! 

But now, what has the Bible, “ the missionary of mis¬ 
sionaries,” done in India? 

We have seen the great translators, Carey, Marshman, 
and Ward, commencing their work on this wide con¬ 
tinent, in 1793. In 1806, they began to print the Scrip¬ 
tures in six languages; but in 1809, no English Bibles 
had ever been sent to Madras for sale, and it was almost 
impossible to procure one. In those times, when a con¬ 
siderable army was in the field, and it became necessary 
to obtain a Bible, it was with difficulty that a copy could 


374 THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

be found with any of the European officers or men. 
Bishop Corrie, in 1811, makes the following interesting 
record: “In 1807, when I was stationed at Chunar, a 
native Roman Catholic used to visit me for religious in¬ 
struction. There was not at this time any translation ot 
the Scriptures to put into his hand. [The Hindui Bible 
had not then been published.] I therefore selected some 
of the most important passages in the Bible, and dictated 
a translation of them, very imperfectly, it is true, but to 
the best of my ability, to the poor man, who wrote them 
on a number of pieces of loose paper. I heard nothing 
more of him for many years, but have been lately in¬ 
formed by the Rev. Mr. Wilkinson of Gooruckpore, who 
visited him on his death-bed, that, on entering into con¬ 
versation with him, he was surprised at his acquaintance 
with scriptural religion. He asked an explanation, and 
the poor man produced the loose slips of paper on which 
he had written my translations. On these it appears his 
soul had fed through life , and through them he died such 
a death, that Mr. W. entertained no doubt of his having 
passed into glory.” 

In 1821, the same excellent bishop avows his belief, 
“ that future labourers will reap the fruit of the precious 
seed which the Bible Society has been sowing in India 
with so much diligence for many years past.” 

And the reaping of that harvest has begun; a gradual 
change is taking place in India; she has been given into 
the hand of England for a great purpose ; and that pur¬ 
pose is beginning to be accomplished. 

The Report of 1853 refers us to the Bibles that have 
been at work since Dr. Carey’s time, who found in India 
only the Tamil and Telugu Bibles. He published his 
Bengali, Marathi, and Uriya Bibles; then came Henry 
Martyn’s Hindustani and Persian New Testaments, and 
the Sanscrit Bible from the press at Serampore. Dr. 
Buchanan provided the Syriac Scriptures; more perfected 
editions in successive years appeared of the Hindui, the 


BIBLE-DISSEMINATION IN INDIA. 


375 


Persian, the Telugu, and the Tamil; then came the 
Malayalim, the Canarese, the Punjabee Bibles, and the 
Burmese Bible, prepared by the devoted American mis¬ 
sionaries. We will not give you the whole list of dia¬ 
lects, but they have each done their work, silently and 
surely, or rather have begun to do it; and from this 
“ word of God, quick and powerful, and sharper than any 
two-edged sword,” the monstrous dragon of idolatry, bred 
of old in the slime of the river of Egypt, awaits his 
death-blow in the mud of the Ganges.* 

When the Calcutta Bible Association was first estab¬ 
lished, which was the happy result of a memorable ser¬ 
mon preached by Henry Martyn, just before he departed 
on his lonely journey to Persia, its principal object was 
to give the word of God to the destitute Protestant 
Churches in India. In 1840, it declared that this object 
was now effectually accomplished, “as, in recent visita¬ 
tions made by the members of the committee, scarcely a 
family of Protestant Christians has been found without 
the Holy Scriptures. The Armenian Churches have 
also been diligently supplied.” The Association then in¬ 
tended to direct its attention more particularly to 
the supply of native Christian Churches, and Christian 
schools for the education of the young; and as education 
in the English language was continually on the increase 
among the natives, new openings for usefulness were con¬ 
stantly presenting themselves. 

To the prosecution of this design we may, in 1853, trace 
the issue of far larger numbers of copies of the Holy Scrip¬ 
tures, and happy results therefrom. In three successive 
years, 1849, 1850, and 1851, the circulation was 43,969 ; 
and we have abundant proofs on every side that there is 
now in this country a wide-spread general knowledge of 
Christianity; f that the Christian Scriptures are regarded 

* See Katterns’ Sermon on “ India, the Stronghold of Idolatry.” 
f See “ Bible in India.” 


376 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


with reverence, and are partially understood by the 
people; that the blessings which have made England 
great will shortly elevate also degraded India; that the 
mental vigour of the conqueror will be imparted to the 
conquered; and that the justice, the moral tone, and truth 
of England are capable of being infused into a people 
who have not known them for ages. 

The Rev. G. Gogerly, for twenty-five years a missionary 
in Bengal, gives us the following incidents in proof of the 
present willingness of the natives of India to receive the 
Scriptures, in contrast to their former reluctance :— 

In the early part of his ministry, in India, Mr. G. was 
one day preaching, when a Brahmin came up to listen. 
“After the service was concluded, a tract was offered to 
him with a respectful salutation, ‘ Will you receive this, 
my lord ? It concerns Jesus Christ the Redeemer of the 
world. If you receive it, the Sudras will also receive it.’ 
He took it scornfully in his hand, turned over two or 
three pages, tore it across, tore it again, spat upon it, and 
cast it in my face.” This was in 1818. 

In 1843, the missionaries, being on a journey, pitched 
their tent near the encampment of a rajah, who sent to 
inquire of them, “ Who are you ?” The answer was re¬ 
turned, “ White people—those who possess the Book of 
God, and beg to offer you a copy thereof in Hindustani.” 
The rajah received it graciously, took off his turban, and 
cast it on the floor, putting in its stead the book upon his 
head : then he removed it, and pressed it to his heart, 
saying, “As I have placed it on my head, I will receive 
it into my mind. As I have clasped it to my breast, I 
will welcome it to my heart.” We know the native cha¬ 
racter well enough to remember, that this might be all 
mere politeness, and possibly meant nothing more; but 
still it shows a different state of feeling from former con¬ 
tumely, and may be taken as a specimen of the present 
general reception of the Bible in India. 

He adds, “We had the opportunity of conveying also 


HINDUI SCRIPTURES. 


377 


a copy of the Scriptures to Dost Mahomet, the potentate 
of Afghanistan (that land of Mahomedans, so inveterate 
in its opposition, and which will not admit colporteurs), 
through the means of an English child with whom he 
was fond of ” 



The Bible, which has made England and America the 
missionaries of the world, will destroy India’s idolatry 
and caste, will purify her people from their immoralities, 
and will raise her female population. But how is it noio 
being distributed in India? “In 1848, the committee 
of the Calcutta Auxiliary perceived with deep regret that 
only 35,429 Bengali Bibles had been issued in the space of 
nine years, for the many millions of Bengal. While con¬ 
templating this inadequate supply, they felt that it would 
be good to institute an extensive succession of missionary 
journeys, to inquire into the wants of the people.” 

In 1852, they again resolved to make grants for these 
missionary tours, and in the cold season planned nine 
more journeys, three of which they proposed to the mis¬ 
sionaries of the Church Missionary Society, and three 
to the London Missionary Society, and others to the Free 
Church and Baptist missionaries, etc. The demand for 
Bengali Scriptures was thus again augmented, and in one 
year amounted to 23,288, besides the copies issued from 
Calcutta to the various stations and agents. 

Owing to the same order of means, the Hindui Scrip¬ 
tures have likewise been largely circulated. The Rev. 
G. Schatz, of the German mission, writes: “ The cold 
season having set in early and favourably, our brethren 
were encouraged to march out sooner than we are gene¬ 
rally able to do at Nagpore; and they have met with 
such a desire after the word of God, in the Chattra dis¬ 
trict, that we have been obliged to send them one load 
of books after another, and our stock of the Scriptures is 
so thinned, that we shall in a short time have scarcely 
any book left but Genesis. We hope you will make us 
some grants of Gospels.” 


378 THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

In reply to this welcome request, the Calcutta Society 
ordered to press, in 1850, 125,000 copies of the Hindui 
Scriptures. 

The Rev. J. R. Campbell of the American mission, at 
Saharunpore, one of the most experienced missionaries in 
the north-west of India, writes : “ Our principal distribu¬ 
tion of the Scriptures, during the past year, was made at 
the Hard war fair, where thousands of portions in Hindui, 
Urdu, Persian, and Punjaubi, were given away to pilgrims 
who could read them, and who expressed a desire to carry 
them to their homes in different and distant parts of India. 
The Bible is a book well known to the heathen in this 
land, and every year’s experience convinces us more 
thoroughly, that the word of God is not fettered, but 
spreading rapidly through the masses of the community. 
We find now but few men of common intelligence who 
do not know something of the leading facts contained in 
the Christian Scriptures; and as but few have had an 
opportunity of hearing the living preachers of the gospel, 
whence could this information arise , but from the general 
and extensive circulation of the word of God ? We must go 
on distributing the precious seed.” 

The Rev. Mr. Hill, of the London Missionary Society, 
said, in a letter written in 1835 : “One evening, whilst 
preaching at Jaghooly, to about 150 persons at my tent 
door, I observed a tall old man approaching, leaning on 
a silver-headed cane. He sat down with the rest, and 
listened with marked attention, and afterwards addressing 
me, said, ‘Sahib, I have been to every holy place in 
India; I have consulted all the sages and pundits I have 
met with ; I am two years short of eighty, and have not 
found a religion in which I can hope for eternity. My 
remaining days are few; the evening of my life has set 
in ; and oh!’ he exclaimed with emotion, ‘ may it please 
God to bring me at the close of my long life to know 
and find a way by which I can die in peace! Do give 
me a book which will tell me this way, and I will read it 


SCRIPTURE DESTITUTION IN MADRAS. 379 

earnestly.’ I gave him a Gospel, and a letter to the Rev. 
Mr. Murray of Chinsurah, for a New Testament. I also 
led him by the hand into the tent, and had an hour’s 
conversation with him, in which I told him that he must 
expect persecution if he embraced the gospel of Christ. 
I had another interview with him, and he heard another 
sermon before I left the place. His name was Prankissen 
Singh, and I have since learned that he obtained his 
New Testament. Ah ! who can tell how many such 
persons may in the jungles be like him, thirsting for the 
waters of life, and endeavouring to feel after God, ‘ if 
haply they may find Him’ ?” 

Dr. Buchanan, in 1807, said of the population of 
India: “ The best effects may be expected from the sim¬ 
ple means of putting the Bible into their hands. All 
who are acquainted with the natives, know, that in¬ 
struction by books is best suited to them. They are, 
in general, a contemplative race, patient in their in¬ 
quiries, anxious also to know what it can be that is of 
importance enough to be written. They regard written 
precepts with respect; and if they possess a book in 
a language they understand, it will not be left long un¬ 
read.” 

How delightful, then, to know, from the Report of 
the Madras committee, in 1853, that in Southern India, 
—comprising 195,000 square miles, and a population of 
21,000,000,—Christians are endeavouring to leaven this 
great mass with the word of God, in the Tamil, Telugu, 
Canarese, Malayalim, and Hindustani languages! Since 
this committee entered on their work, in the year 1820, 
almost 800,000 copies of the Scriptures (though chiefly 
in portions) have been put into circulation. During the 
past year, the number distributed was 67,418 ; yet this 
scarcely amounts to one copy for every ten of the estimated 
population of the mere town and suburbs of Madras. 
You see, then, the field to be sown ! In some of the vast 
districts, there is lamentable need of more missionaries; 


380 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


and wherever a portion is reclaimed from the desert, and 
pains bestowed upon it, a good measure of success is sure 
to be realized. 

For the districts of Tinnevelly and Travancore there 
is a large staff of missionaries and catechists, chiefly those 
of the Church of England. The same are needed in the 
native states of Cochin and the Mysore. The Tamil 
translation is still receiving further and further revision, 
though that issued at Bellary was published after six¬ 
teen years of indefatigable labour. The Scriptures have 
become the text-book in all the native schools, which 
are very numerous; and thus the native mind is opened 
from infancy to perceive the hollowness of idolatry. 
Large portions are also committed to memory. Much 
attention has been paid by the Madras committee to the 
system of colportage. It is now busily employing fifteen 
or sixteen colporteurs, under the superintendence of the 
Rev. T. Brotherton, who says : “ One of these, Mr. L., 
speaks and reads Tamil, Telugu, and English. He has 
visited every street and every house in a certain suburb 
of Madras, and made an offer of a copy of the Gospel of 
Luke and of the Acts to at least one member of every 
family. Two others have visited, in one year, 365 towns 
and villages, offering a copy of the Gospel at every house 
in every street. It is of no use to wait,” continues Mr. 
Brotherton, “ till we meet with missionaries learned in 
all the -wisdom of the Hindus, Romanists, and Mahome- 
dans, who will be able to meet on their own ground the 
Brahmin, the Jesuit, and the Mollah. We must send 
out the native colporteurs to distribute the word of God. 
If we cannot yet send the living preacher to these millions, 
we can send the living word , and perhaps we may find the 
Lord honouring his simple word, making it as plain to 
the comprehension of the Hindu peasant, as he often 
does to that of the European cottager. Mr. Hill, of the 
London Mission, when at one time proclaiming the love 
of Christ and the blessings of salvation, could frequently 


THE POWER OF THE SCRIPTURES. 381 

hear the expressions of ‘ What mercy!’ ‘What words of 
mercy ! ’ ‘We never heard such mercy! ’ ‘ Tarry with us, 
sahib, and. teach us more of these things. Build a school, 
and we will undertake to send, as a beginning, eighty 
boys of respectable families.’ ‘ I told them,’ added Mr. 
Hill, ‘ that I lived at Berhampore, eighty or ninety miles 
off, that I was fixed, preached, and had schools there, but 
I would give them books by which they might learn 
more of God; and that, if they would read them with 
prayer, God would teach them to serve and love Him. 
I gave them ten or twelve Gospels. The fields here seem 
white—white unto the harvest.’ ” 

In the months of November and December, 1852, and 
in January of this year, the Rev. F. Morgan, a Baptist 
missionary, visited numerous places where neither mis¬ 
sionary nor Christian book had ever been seen before. 
He says, “ The desire of the people to obtain the Scrip¬ 
tures is most intense. Imagine a large market with from 
one to two thousand people, myself on an elevated spot, 
hundreds of hands stretched out, and hundreds of tongues 
shouting, ‘ Oh sahib, a great thing! oh give me a book ! ’ 
Brahmins and Sudras rolling in the dust together, snatch¬ 
ing the books from one another; respectable people with 
children in their hands and in their arms, imploring me 
to put the books in the hands of the little ones; books all 
gone, missionary reeling from the effect of dust, noise, 
and speaking ; people imploring for more books, and in 
some places I have been obliged to go to police-offices to 
rest for half an hour. I have seen Brahmin lads in tears, 
because they could not get books, saying, ‘ Oh sahib! I 
ran when I heard you were here, and now what shall I 
do?’ In many places, I have been permitted to preach 
on the platforms of temples, Brahmins often assisting in 
the distribution of the Scriptures.” 

To meet this readiness to receive the word, the Parent 
Society have made a grant of 500/. to the Madras So¬ 
ciety, for colportage; and they have already intimated 


382 THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

to the secretaries of Missionary Societies, labouring in 
Southern India, that they will meet the expense incurred by 
any missionary on a tour, one main object of which is the 
circulation of the word of God, they being furnished with 
an estimate of the expense, and the plan of the journey. 

“ What a blank,” say the missionaries, “ would be 
created in all our missions, if we had no Gospels or 
Bibles to distribute among our new converts! How soon 
would they be led astray into all kinds of error, if they 
had not the lamp of God’s truth to guide them into the 
paths of righteousness and peace!” 

Wherever a religious movement has taken place, it has 
been characterised, in the first instance, by a desire for 
the Scriptures. Some persons attempt to excuse their 
disbelief of Christianity from witnessing its effects as 
imperfectly exhibited in the lives of some of the native 
converts; and the heathens are glad to adduce their 
inconsistencies as evidence that there is no difference of 
practice between themselves and Christians. But in the 
pure Book there is no failure! The Vedas, Puranas, and 
Shastras shrink before its light. In the Bible itself ice 
see what its followers should be; and this is always found 
the best argument with the natives. 

A most interesting instance of the power of the Scrip¬ 
tures over the mind of a learned native is found in the 
history of the Rev. Hormusjee Pestonjee, in whose hands, 
eighteen years ago, a copy of the Gospel of Matthew was 
placed by a travelling missionary. The next year the 
father of this native took up the book, and read and re¬ 
read it, and recommended his mischievous sons to read 
it, especially the 5th, 6th, and 7th chapters. The next 
year, the family and its friends all feared that this book 
might destroy the son Hormusjee’s faith in Parsiism. 
The next year, he bought himself an English Bible and 
the four Gospels, in Guzerathi, and read both together 
for the sake of comparing the two languages. The next 
year, which was 1839, the fears of the family and its 


INDIA A FIELD OF VAST IMPORTANCE. 383 

friends were realized. A power from on high convinced 
the hitherto blind reader of the Bible, that it was not the 
language of literature, but the Divine instruction—not the 
letter but the spirit that was to be pursued. Since that 
time, he says himself: “ Being first blessed, I have more 
or less endeavoured, in my humble way, to become a 
blessing to others, and to make the Bible itself an ever- 
increasing blessing to both. Once a deluded wretch, I 
have been recently set apart by the Great Author of the 
Bible to undeceive and enlighten my fellow-countrymen 
by means of this same sacred Book.” In the years 1852 
and 1853, this learned native is mentioned as aiding in 
the revision of the Guzerathi Scriptures. 

But we must leave India, difficult as it is to turn away 
from it, now that its idolatry is on the wane, and its 
desire for truth on the increase. Mr. Bion of Dacca 
says: “We have been surprised to see how things are 
changed. Formerly, we were scarcely able to speak with¬ 
out dispute and disturbance: now, we have always quiet 
and attentive hearers; and when we asked a few days 
ago, after preaching, whether any one had questions, a 
Brahmin said, before 200 people, ‘ Who can say any¬ 
thing against your religion? It is all true that you say.’ 
Another, a Mussulman, said, ‘ The words of the gospel 
are all very good and true, and not, as we formerly 
thought, mixed with Satan’s words.’ ” 

Near the above-mentioned place, Dacca, in 1818, a 
number of converts were found inhabiting certain ad¬ 
jacent villages, who had forsaken idolatry, and who con¬ 
stantly refused to pay to the Brahmins the customary 
honours. They were also remarkable for their correct¬ 
ness of conduct, and adherence to truth. They were 
occasionally visited by several of our Christian brethren, 
both European and native, and were scattered through 
ten or twelve villages. They were, however, the fol¬ 
lowers of no particular leader; they called themselves 
“ learners,” and professed to be in search of a true law- 


384 


THE BOOK AKD ITS STORY. 


giver and teacher. Some of our native friends, being 
very desirous of knowing whence they had derived all 
their ideas, were at length told that they had imbibed 
them from a book which was carefully preserved in one 
of their villages. They were shown this book, which 
was much worn, and kept in a case of brass for the pur¬ 
pose of preserving it, and which they were told had been 
possessed for many years, although none of these persons 
could say whence it came. On examination, this book 
was found to be a copy of the Bengali New Testament, 
printed at Serampore, in 1800. 

“ Gain India for Christ,” says an eloquent preacher, 
“ and the world will follow. Destroy idolatry there, and 
the rest of your work will be but clearing the earth from 
its wrecks. The old serpent has yet his throne there ; 
and as you pass along you behold, in token of it, the 
nest of the living reptile garlanded with flowers ; but 
give India the Bible ! she is stretching out her hand to 
receive it, and it shall carry into the innermost recesses 
of her hoary temples the light of the glorious gospel of 
God. 

“It is impossible to read of the devil-worship of 
Southern India, without astonishment and horror. De¬ 
votees drinking blood, working themselves up into a state 
of frenzy, and then with frantic violence whirling them¬ 
selves about, in wild tumultuous dances, till they sink 
down almost dead in a state of exhaustion, ‘ led captive 
by the devil at his will.’ In sight of this fearful picture, 
the hideous amusement of the ignorant multitudes, let 
the solemn fact be weighed and remembered , that there have 
not been published three millions of Scriptures altogether, 
for all the millions of India , who, since this century began, 
have been passing away to death and judgment, and for its 
living millions who are now hastening on to their eternal 
doom ,—a vast multitude of souls, reaching nearly to 
500,000,000—a number equal to half the population of 
the globe !” 


CHINA.—MARBLE TABLET FOUND THERE. 385 


CHINA. 

There is no part of the world that at this time can 
present so vast an extent of interest to the eye of the 
Christian, as China,—earth’s most ancient kingdom, as 
old if not older than Egypt or Nineveh, and which has 
endured while they have decayed ! It must rival in his 
thoughts even India. 

A famous marble tablet was dug up at Se-gnan-foo, in 
the province of Shense, in China, in the year 1625: upon 
it was a cross resembling that used by the Syrians in 
Malabar, accompanied by an inscription in the Chinese 
and Syriac languages, describing the principal doctrines 
of the gospel, and recording the translation of the sacred 
Scriptures into Chinese. It would appear that, in the 
year 637, Olopen, a Christian missionary, arrived in China, 
and obtained an interview with the emperor, who ordered 
his minister, then the most learned of Chinese scholars, to 
translate the sacred books brought by Olopen. 

The tablet which gives this record was erected, accord¬ 
ing to its own authority, in the year 782. The Chinese 
discovered it in 1625 ; and neither they nor the Jesuits 
(then their teachers) understood the Syrian part of the 
inscription, till it was translated in Malabar, which is 
not a small evidence in favour of its authenticity. 

It may, therefore, hence be concluded, that the old 
Nestorian Church—that purest primitive church of the 
East—sent one of its missionaries into China, in the 
seventh century; which accords with the assertion of 
Mosheim’s “ Church History,” that “ in the seventh cen¬ 
tury, the Nestorians penetrated into China, where they 
established several churches.” Mosheim likewise says, 
that the Nestorian Christians were found in China till 
the beginning of the fifteenth century. 

The above translation, made by the Chinese minister, 
may or may not be in existence. In 1805, the committee 
of the Bible Society, having heard of a Chinese manu- 


386 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


script version in the British Museum, instituted particular 
inquiries concerning it. 

They found that it contained a harmony of the four 
Evangelists, the Acts of the Apostles, and all the Epistles 
of St. Paul, excepting that to the Hebrews; but it ap¬ 
peared from the style and wording to have been made 
from the Vulgate, under the direction of the Jesuits ; and 
for this and other reasons it was considered better to obtain 
an entirely new translation. 

This version was, however, very useful in assisting Dr. 
Morrison* in acquiring the language ; and in 1807, he 
was sent by the London Missionary Society to Canton. 

The following curious characters are Chinese. This 
specimen is a portion of the beginning of the first chapter 
of St. John’s Gospel :— 



n a # m % 


—* 



Chinese language.—dr. morrison. 387 

1 he Chinese have no alphabet: every written character 
is a word. In different parts of China they speak the 
language very differently, but it is everywhere written in 
the same way. 

Three thousand different characters are in very general 
use. Some of them are simple, as [JJ a field, a 

horse, ipl a sheep; and some are complex, as ^|J le, 
which means gain or profit. So' it must be a difficult 
task to learn Chinese. Dr. Morrison’s dictionary contains 
40,000 characters. This is found in the library of the 
Bible Society, in six volumes : it was prihted in Ma¬ 
lacca, and cost him ten years’ labour. He was unable to 
print it in Canton, from the jealousy of the Chinese. 

Dr. Morrison taught himself this difficult language, 
that he might translate the Bible. He accomplished the 
translation of the New Testament, in the year 1814, after 
seven years’ incessant study, at first undertaken in a 
cellar, by the light of an earthenware lamp, to avoid 
observation! The first Chinese convert found a blessing 
to his own soul, while assisting Dr. Morrison to print his 
New Testament. While thus engaged in preparing the 
Bible for his countrymen, “ he began to see that the 
merits of Jesus were sufficient for the salvation of all 
mankind, and hence believed on Him,—the Holy Spirit 
printing the word upon his heart.” 

In May, 1814, by the sea-side, at a spring of water 
issuing from the foot of a lofty hill, far away from all 
human notice, was baptized by his rejoicing teacher, in 
the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Tsae-ako, 
—the first-fruits of a great harvest of souls yet to be 
gathered in, after the sowing of the seed of the word. 

Tsae-ako adhered to the profession of the gospel until 
his death, which took place, from consumption, in 181fc 

The London Missionary Society afterwards sent Git 
Dr. Milne to the aid of Dr. Morrison. Dr. Milne was 


388 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


instrumental in the conversion of a Chinese named Leang- 
a-fah, whom Dr. Morrison ordained to the work of an 
evangelist among his countrymen. Leang-a-fah is still 
living, a valued member of the Canton mission, and has 
laboured for upwards of thirty-six years with unwavering 
fidelity among those whom he says, “ are glued fast to ten 
thousand forms of idols, but striving to set an example 
that will move men’s hearts,—praying that the most high 
Lord will convert them.” 

The above is an extract from one of his letters, in 
1828; but it is not till the Jubilee Year of the Bible 
Society that God seems to have poured out a special 
blessing on the efforts and prayers of* this first Chinese 
evangelist. 

Leang-a-fah laboured with Dr. Morrison continually, 
to scatter the word of life in separate portions among his 
countrymen. He resolved to write short tracts to explain 
the Scriptures, which he has called, “ Scripture Lessons, 
or Good Words to admonish the Age,” for distribution 
among the students at the literary examinations. 

On the 1st of August, 1834, the beloved Morrison was 
called away by death. He died at Canton, amidst the 
few prayerful and sorrowing converts who were given 
him for his reward during his twenty-seven years of 
patient toil; and it is said he died “panting after the 
salvation of China.” 

On the 20th of the same month, Leang-a-fah, with 
two other Christian friends, went out to distribute his 
“ Scripture Lessons,” at the examination of literary can¬ 
didates. He distributed 5000 one day, and 5000 the 
next. On the third day came persecution : one of his 
friends received forty blows on the mouth, which rendered 
him unable to speak ; the second was put to death ; and 
Leang-a-fah fled to Singapore, and found refuge on board 
one of the English ships at Lintin, and from thence he 
thus writes : “I call to mind that all who preach the 
gospel of our Lord Jesus must suffer persecution; and. 


THE RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT IN CHINA. 389 

though I cannot equal the patience of Paul or Job, I 
desire to imitate these ancient saints, and keep my heart 
in peace.” 

Leang-a-iah little thought that one of the tracts, distri¬ 
buted at such a risk, was to prove the first seed of revolu¬ 
tion in China, and to turn her from her idolatry, 4000 
years old, to the worship of the living God: but as the 
oak is in the acorn, so it was ; and he who sowed the acorn 
lives to see the springing up of the tree that he planted. 

We must now recount to you the last information 
received from China concerning the wonderful “ rebel¬ 
lion,” as it is called, which threatens to overthrow the 
Mantchoo or Tartar dynasty. 

It appears that the insurgents have a leader called 
Tae-ping-wang, or Sew-tseuen, whom they design to 
elevate to the throne. They everywhere announce thei* 
resolution to deliver the Chinese nation from the Tartai 
yoke. They are well received by the population, and 
obtain without difficulty large contributions in support of 
their cause. But the most remarkable circumstance attend¬ 
ing their progress is, that neither they nor their chiefs 
are idolaters. Wherever they appear, they destroy the 
bonzes, the joss-houses, and the idols, and the latter are 
seen floating in broken fragments down the rivers,— 
Buddhas of twenty feet and more, floundering about in 
the water,—idols esteemed only as blocks of wood, to be 
hacked, and hewed, and broken in pieces. 

Sew-tseuen has hitherto been victorious. He has taken 
Nankin and many other cities, and is master of the great 
canal by which grain is conveyed to Pekin. He has sum¬ 
moned the mandarins to receive him as their legitimate so¬ 
vereign, descending in the ninth generation from the last 
prince of the Ming or native Chinese dynasty. His policy 
seems to be to make war upon the Tartar authorities, but 
to protect the people; and among so methodical and in¬ 
genious a nation as the Chinese, it is evident that the 
state of disorder described will be but of short duration. 


390 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


“ Be the government of China what it may, it cannot 
be worse than that which seems likely to be now over¬ 
thrown. The Mantchoo dynasty has shown itself ready, 
whenever it dared, to persecute the Christian religion, 
to restrict the trade of the empire, and to evade its en¬ 
gagements with foreign nations. But the disposition 
which has of late years been manifested by the Chinese 
themselves to adopt a purer faith, to extend their com¬ 
merce, and even to emigrate to Australia, California, and 
the Mauritius, shows that the oppressive policy of the 
government is by no means the same with the views and 
interests of the people.” 

It seems that the chief, Sew-tseuen, has been the en¬ 
lightener of his followers in religious matters, even more 
than their leader in war, and he has given a history of 
his own acquaintance with the scriptural truths which he 
now publishes under an imperial seal, in some Chinese 
tracts which have been carefully read by Dr. Legge, at 
Hong-kong, who has communicated the information to 
the Bible and Missionary Societies in London. 

Sew-tseuen was one of the literary candidates who 
received from Leang-a-fah and his companions, in 1834, 
“Scripture Lessons, or Good Words to admonish the 
Age.” This was the first thing that aroused his mind. 
In 1837, after receiving the truths taught in the tract, 
he sufferedfrom some disease , during which he thought he 
was taken up to heaven, and records that “ his soul saw ” 
many things which confirmed the new doctrines with 
which his mind had been occupied. Probably, in the 
delirium of fever, he confounded the ideal with the real, 
and hence may have arisen the visions with which he is 
supposed to have been favoured. It is a fact that a kind 
of divine origin or mission is ascribed to him, -whether 
actually, or merely in the language of “ the flowery land,” 
is not ascertained. His other name, “ Tae-ping-w r ancr ? ” 
signifies “ the prince of peace.” He forbids, by an edict, 
*nv application to himself of the words supreme or holy. 


THE RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT IN CHINA. 391 

hitherto assumed by the emperors of China, which he 
declines on the ground that they are due to God alone. 

In 1844, he composed various works; and in 1846, 
resided in Canton, with Mr. Roberts, an American Mis¬ 
sionary, seeking for further instruction. Some obscurity 
rests over his subsequent course ; but there soon followed 
the organisation of the rebellion, some few years of fight¬ 
ing in the west, and then a triumphant progress from 
strength to strength, till Nankin fell before him on the 
19th of March, 1853. 

Such is the history of the rebel chief. Now, what are 
the truths his followers have been taught to believe? 

They announce a belief in One only, the living and 
true God; this they hold firmly, and with the earnestness 
of a nation newly awakened from idolatry. They base 
their belief of it on the teaching of the Old Testament, 
and on the most ancient books and practice of China;— 
for their own books testify that the most ancient Chinese 
must have known the true God; while they also admit, 
that, so early as the twenty-sixth century before Christ, 
the “ impish devil drew men into his toils, and taught 
them to worship other and evil spirits.” 

In a letter from Shanghai, it is said that the rebels will 
not tolerate idolatry, either Catholic or Pagan. Shortly 
after they obtained Nankin, the Roman Catholics were, 
on Good Friday, performing their usual services in one 
of their chapels. The insurgents inquired, “ What is all 
this about?” They replied, “We are worshipping the 
Lord of heaven.” “ Whose images, then, are these upon 
the wall? ” It was answered, “ The images of Christ and 
the Virgin Mary.” They were then instantly destroyed. 
These deeds of summary determination seem necessary, in 
order to strike at the root of that vast system of idolatry 
which has hitherto ruled in China. We are told of an 
immense temple, in which 500 heathen priests were offi¬ 
ciating at once. They were all in a standing posture, 
making their vain repetitions, “ Ometo feh ! ometo feh! ” 


392 THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

This is customary three times a-day. In the centre of 
this temple stood three enormous idols, and all around 
were multitudes of other idols of various sizes, enshrined 
in great magnificence and costly splendour. 

With the idols, much other heathenish nonsense has 
been swept away,—all the distinction of days into lucky 
and unlucky with which the Chinese almanacs have hi¬ 
therto been filled. “ These,” say the rebels, “ were artful 
devices of the devil. We have now expunged them all. 
Years, months, and days succeed one another according 
to the appointment of our heavenly Father. They are 
all lucky—all good. Let a man reverence, with a true 
heart, the great God, and he may hope for success in his 
undertakings, whensoever commenced.” 

The sincerity of their belief in one God has led those 
rebels to understand that all men, as the children of God, 
are brethren. They speak of the world as a whole, and 
say, “It is one family.” “There are many men under 
heaven, but all are brothers: there are many women 
under heaven, but all are sisters. Why should we in¬ 
dulge the wish to devour and consume one another?” 

This is the noble idea that will break down the great 
wall of China,—1500 miles long, and 2000 years old,*— 
which is said to contain material sufficient to rear all the 
dwelling-houses in England, Wales, and Scotland, and 
whose very towers would erect a city as large as London. 

“One family,”—“ all brethren,”—these are new words 
for the Chinese to use, who have hitherto called all 
nations, “ the outside Barbarians”! All hail to our new 
brothers! who, in themselves, form one-third of the great 
family. And what gift have we sent them as a token 
of our acknowledgment of the relationship ?—a million 
copies of the New Testament of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ! 

They are deeply in want of this precious gift. They do 
* See “ The Chinese; a Book of the Day,” by the Rev. T. Phillips. 


THE DELEGATES’ VERSION FOR THE CHINESE. 393 

not seem at present to possess the best translation of the 
Scriptures. They do possess, it appears, the whole of the 
Pentateuch and portions of the Gospels, according to the 
translation of the late Dr. Gutzlaff; but they have not 
fully studied the life of Jesus, or the Acts and Epistles of 
the apostles. A most correct and intelligible translation 
of the Scriptures into Chinese, called “ The Delegates’ 
Version,” has recently been completed by several honoured 
missionaries resident in the country, after labouring upon 
it almost day and night for six years. Within three weeks 
after it was completed, news reached them of this in¬ 
surrection in the interior of China; and they saw that 
God had made an opening for his word without 
delay. 

Let us therefore give the people this corrected transla¬ 
tion. Their errors must be dispersed by the reception of 
the whole word of God; for much error mingles with 
truth in their belief and practice. They have not re¬ 
nounced polygamy; they still make offerings of animals, 
tea, rice, etc., to God; and they have faith in present 
visions and revelations. “ Means must be taken,” say 
the missionaries, “ at whatever personal risk, to put then 
in possession of the entire Scriptures.” 

Under this impression, and enabled to do so by the 
willing offerings which are flowing in, as it would seem, 
from all the Christian families of England, The British 
and Foreign Bible Society have resolved to print for 
China, besides the million Testaments, fifty thousand 
entire Bibles; and again we may say, “What are these 
among so many ? ”—one million of Testaments, and fifty 
thousand Bibles, among three hundred and sixty millions 
of people! They will, however, soon reprint them for 
themselves, as, by their simple method of printing, they 
are enabled, without screw, lever, wheel, or wedge, to 
throw off 3000 impressions of any page in a day. The 
whole apparatus of a printer in China consists of his 
gravers, blocks, and brushes. These he may shoulder 


394 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


and travel with, from place to place, purchasing paper 
and lamp-black as he needs them; and, borrowing a table 
anywhere, print editions by the hundred or the score, as 
he may be able to dispose of them. 

There are generals in the rebel army,—men of Kwan- 
tung and Kwang-se,—who, it would seem, are deeply 
influenced by the belief that God is always with them. 

“ The hardships they have suffered, and the dangers 
they have incurred, are, as they assert, punishments and 
trials of their heavenly Father, and the successes they 
have achieved are instances of his grace. With the 
glistening eyes of gratitude they point back to the fact, 
that, at the beginning of their enterprise, some four years 
ago, they numbered only 100 or 200, and that, except 
for the direct help of their heavenly Father, they never 
could have done what they have done. ‘ It is said,’ they 
continue, ‘ that we use magical arts; but the only magic 
we have used is prayer to God. When our numbers 
reached from 2000 to 3000, and we were yet beset on 
all hands by greater numbers,—when we had no powder 
left, and our provisions were all gone,—our heavenly 
Father showed us the way to escape. So we put our 
wives and children in the midst, and not only forced 
a passage, but completely beat our enemies. If it be 
the will of God that our prince of peace shall be the 
sovereign of China, he will be the sovereign of China; 
if not, then we will die here.’ 

“ The man who used this language of courageous fidelity 
to the cause in every extreme, and of confidence-in God, 
was a shrivelled-up, elderly, little person, who made an 
odd figure in his yellow-and-red hood; but he could 
think the thoughts and speak the speech of a hero.” 

Dr. Legge thinks that the rebels cannot have had 
much, if they have had any, teaching from Protestant 
missionaries. These, however, have been at work in 
China, though few in number, at the free ports. 

The Chinese Repository recently stated, that only 150 


THE GREAT MISSIONARY, 395 

missionaries have laboured in China since the arrival of 
Dr. Morrison in 1807, of whom seventy-three are now in 
the field, twenty-nine have died, and forty-eight have 
returned in ill-health or discouraged at the difficulties of 
her peculiar language. Of those who remain, twenty- 
three are Englishmen, forty-four Americans, and six 
Germans,—only seventy-three Protestant missionaries for 
360,000,000 of people!—eleven at Hong-kong; ten at 
Amoy; twelve atFunchau; seventeen atNingpo, includ¬ 
ing Miss Aldersey, a Christian English lady, who has 
devoted herself to the education of native females; and 
twenty-three at Shanghai ;—no more . Yet this handful 
of men may have done much to send up the country 11 the 
Missionary they found in China,” conversant with its lan¬ 
guage, and diligently engaged in instructing the heathen. 
Let us hear what Mr. Abeel, an American missionary, 
one of those who had been in China, said of this Mis¬ 
sionary at the thirtieth anniversary of the British and 
Foreign Bible Society: 

“ This Missionary,” said Mr. Abeel, “ had made re¬ 
peated voyages along the coast of China, from island to 
island, and from province to province, and the ships 
which bore him thither had often left him alone; and 
what did he do ? Alone and unaided, he entered town, 
hamlet, and village, and found that almost every one 
among these civilised heathens understood him. He pe¬ 
netrated up to the capital, and it is said that he even 
entered the palace. This Missionary afterwards did me 
the honour to accompany me, and such another com¬ 
panion I never expect to find. Where I could not go, 
he went; and what I could not do he did. He laboured 
successfully among the millions who had no teacher, and 
he instructed for weeks together even one of the principal 
priests of the empire, the chaplain of the emperor. This 
Missionary, with all his powers, became my servant, I 
sent him on board some junks that were returning to 
China, and there he sat, day by day, teaching the mari- 


396 


TIIE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


ners, and reading with them ; and at the end of their 
voyage he again went forth, as he had done before. 

“ Are you desirous to know who this Missionary is? 
I will first tell you who he is not. He is not a Church¬ 
man ; he is not a Dissenter; he is not a Calvinist, nor an 
Arminian; he is neither an Englishman nor an American; 
he appears to hate all sects, many of the most prominent 
of which I never heard him deign to mention. This 
Missionary is The Bible , the only Missionary upon whom 
myself and my fellow-labourers depend for the conversion 
of the world. He is gone forth into China, and into 
all the vast kingdoms and islands of the East. I had the 
honour at some of the outposts to visit the junks carrying 
on the China trade, and to supply fifty of these junks with 
that Missionary; and so by one means or another he will 
traverse the length and breadth of the empire.” 

He has done so for twenty years since then ! China 
has eighteen provinces, and embraces a space of five 
millions and a half of square miles, with a population so 
dense, that they are obliged to cultivate all but their 
most sterile lands for food, to live in junks upon their 
rivers, and even to terrace their mountains for agriculture, 
and grow water-lilies upon all their lakes, of which they 
eat the seeds and roots. Its population are educated; 
and they can furnish books to each other for a mere trifle. 
The works of Confucius, written on 400 leaves, can be 
purchased for ninepence. Every peasant and pedlar has 
the common depositories of knowledge within his reach. 
Throughout the empire they can read the same character, 
even although they speak different dialects; therefore, 
when the pure morality of the gospel, with all the stu¬ 
pendous facts of Scripture history shall be once fully 
brought before the minds of this intelligent race, “ a 
nation may be born at once” into an inheritance of all 
the privileges of the gospel (Isaiah 66. 8). 

Those who are familiar with the most interesting 
journals of the Bishop of Victoria, of Dr. Medhurst, and 


INDIA AND CHINA NOMINALLY DESTITUTE. 397 


of Dr. Gutzlaff, will readily call to mind the times in 
which the good seed was sown , in many an hour of de¬ 
pression,—by Dr. Morrison, the first translator of the 
Chinese Scriptures in this century, as he made use of 
^rant after grant from the British and Foreign Bible 
Society, and felt and said it was “but a drop in the 
ocean,”—by his indefatigable son and successors, often 
amid privation and persecution, still revising and re¬ 
revising the first translation of the Book of God, and dis¬ 
pensing it to many a glad and grateful heart. The Bible 
Society has always afforded every facility to such mis¬ 
sionary labour, and China will now make an irresistible 
appeal to England and America, for efforts on a nobler 
scale than any of which they have hitherto even dreamed. 

India and China, alone, present to the eye of the Chris¬ 
tian the destitute population of half a world. We have 
been honoured to create the hunger for the bread and the 
thirst for the water of life, and now we must supply it, 
and teach them how to supply themselves. 

Their present destitution, and their willingness to 
receive the Scriptures, are great facts, and the English 
mind always bends to the power of facts, and acts upon 
them, preferring to draw its own inferences. The Bible 
Society has never wanted funds, since the first hour of 
its existence, to carry out its necessary designs, and we 
believe it never will. It cannot accomplish the work 
that now opens before it, on what has for some time con¬ 
stituted its free income,—about fifty thousand pounds. 
Happily its Jubilee offering has arrived at the noble sum 
of one hundred thousand pounds, inclusive of the money 
raised for the million Chinese Testaments, which is a 
certain proof that the willing gifts of the people have 
been poured into its treasury. God has sent a blessing 
on the information dispersed, and it has awakened the 
minds of many to the importance of united effort for the 
distribution of his word. Yet, what, to Britain’s merchant 
princes “ casting in of their abundance,” is the sum of 
one hundred thousand pounds towards such an object ? 


398 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


knowing, as they do, that it is our Bible which gives us 
our lofty position among the nations of the earth, and 
which carries civilisation with it wherever it goes! 

A quarter of a million of money is said to have been 
expended upon the dress of one image of the Virgin 
Mary, in the city of Rome ! Roman Catholicism has sent 
forth her earnest teachers of tradition, who are afraid to 
print the Bible, and she has “ converts by millions, in 
China.” In 1830, their mission cost the sum of forty 
thousand pounds. Mahomedanism (not by fire and sword, 
but by the milder arts of proselytism) has, in China, shamed 
the puny efforts of those who send forth the more holy 
Book. We may, indeed, almost wonder at our Protes¬ 
tant successes. 

In 1835, Mr. George Borrow superintended the print¬ 
ing of a version of the New Testament in Mantchoo, a 
dialect much used in the north of China. Dr. Morrison, 
when he heard of this translation, remarked, how wonder¬ 
fully unconnected labours were now brought to bear upon 
each other, and blend in their effects; and he trusted that 
the Mantchoo Bible would be of great use in the northern 
dominions of the Chinese empire. 

The missionaries among the Buriat Mongols, also, after 
ten years of labour, completed a translation of the Scrip¬ 
tures into Mongolian; and Mr. Stallybrass says: “ When 
we regard China as about to be opened for the reception 
of the glorious gospel, this version rises much in import¬ 
ance. It is intelligible to all those who inhabit the vast 
tract of country between Siberia and the Chinese-wall, as 
well as to many of the Chinese themselves.” Mr. Knill 
adds, concerning this version, “ Our Siberian Mission is as 
near to China as Wales is to England, the same idolatry 
being practised on both sides of the frontier. Some of 
the young natives engaged in this translation used to come 
to Mr. Stallybrass, almost every evening, with their New 
Testaments in their hands, asking him to explain certain 
passages, and they had (like our own good King Alfred) 
little text-books, which they carried in their bosoms, in 


THE BIBLE AMONG THE MONGOLS, 399 

which they have written passages which have particularly 
struck them.* It is delightful to mark how a beam of 
sacred pleasure lights up their features, when some new 
view of Divine truth breaks upon them,—some fresh point 
from which they can contemplate the love of the Saviour. 
Last Sabbath, at our usual Mongolian service, I requested 
one of them to read the third chapter of John’s Gospel. 
When he came to the words, ‘ God so loved the world, 
that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever be- 
lieveth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life,’ 
his voice faltered, and with difficulty he read a little far¬ 
ther ; but when he came to the words, ‘ This is the con¬ 
demnation, that light is come into the world, but men loved 
darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil,’ 
his feelings completely overcame him, and his voice was 
drowned with ? and tears. 1 finished the chapter,” 
adds Mr. rvniii, “ and preached to the people.” 

This translation was completed in 1841. “ We wait,” 
say the Parent committee, “ only for the opened door; 
for we grieve to say that the mission has, by authority, 
been broken up. The Old Testament has been printed, 
the New revised, the sanction of the committee is given 
for printing 3000 copies; but when the work will be un¬ 
dertaken still remains to be seen. The faithful convert 
Shagdur continues active in the distribution of portions 
of the Mongolian Scriptures. In 1840, Shagdur went out 
to distribute copies of the Scriptures in the districts im¬ 
mediately bordering on the Chinese frontier. In a few 
days, the whole of his stock was disposed of. He says he 
felt like a man who had gone out with a bushel of seed- 
corn to sow a field of ten acres. The Mongolian Scrip¬ 
tures find their way to many who understand the language 
in the Chinese empire, and we have been repeatedly told , 
that the books are well understood , are much sought after , 
and we hope not read in vain.” f 


See page 114. 


f Thirty-sixth Report, page xi. 


400 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


In 1848, the committee, at the earnest recommendation 
of Dr. Barth of Germany, granted the sum of 100/. to 
Dr. GutzlafF, for the Chinese Union, composed of con¬ 
verted natives, a considerable number of whom traverse 
the interior parts of China, introducing the word of God 
into those portions of the country to which no missionary 
had access. 

“ Wong-shao-yet, the colporteur, lately went to Hang- 
chau. The people are very willing there, as at other 
places, to hear and receive the word of God. He has the 
utmost facility in circulating single portions of the Holy 
Scriptures. It is evident that there is a wide and invit¬ 
ing field for Christian labour in China; and, though re¬ 
strictions exist as to the admission of foreigners, native 
assistants can freely distribute to the countless multitude 
the words of life. There is 'positively nothing in the way 
of the unlimited employment of such agency; and we are 
fully persuaded that by this means, in a great measure, 
China is to be evangelised and converted to God. The 
gratifying reports of this colporteur are confirmed by the 
personal observation of the missionaries.” 

The Report for 1849, page 132, also contains the names 
of the places where these portions of Scripture have been 
circulated; and among them are found the very districts 
or provinces of Kwang-tung, and Keang-se , named as the 
native places of the leaders in the present movement. 

The Report for 1850 says, “ Dr. Gutzlafi* received from 
the British and Foreign Bible Society two additional 
grants of 100/. each, for the distribution of Chinese Tes¬ 
taments, and also 200 copies of the Buriat, Mongol, and 
Mantchoo Scriptures.” 

In 1852, the committee, at Shanghai, were encouraged 
by the Parent committee to print a small edition of por¬ 
tions of the New Testament in Mantchoo and Chinese, in 
parallel columns; and for this purpose the British and 
Foreign Bible Society’s fount of Mantchoo type has been 
forwarded to China, Dr. Medhurst having written, “We 


JAPAN. 


401 


tliink that Scriptures printed in this form would be use¬ 
ful, as there are many Chinese and Tartars partially ac¬ 
quainted with both languages, who would be very glad 
to obtain books printed in this manner, when otherwise 
they might not give attention to them.” 

With these types were also forwarded 200 more copies 
of the Mantchoo New Testament, with 100 Bibles and 
200 Testaments in Mongolian. 

These, then, are some of the avenues by which the 
word of God has entered China. Perhaps some day the trea¬ 
sure may be returned with interest to the Buriat Mongols 
when there shall be a Chinese and Foreign Bible Society, 
and when China has learned to evangelise, not to exter¬ 
minate, the Tartars. 


JAPAN. 

It does not appear that there is yet any Bible for the 
islands of Japan, which contain a population, it is said, 
of nearly fifty millions of inhabitants. Japan is a dark 
and unknown world. Jesuit missionaries from Portugal 
settled there in the sixteenth century, and induced great 
numbers of Japanese to embrace their form of Christi¬ 
anity; but these having offended the government, a 
persecution was commenced against them to the death. 
This happened in the seventeenth century; and ever since 
then, the penalty of death has been denounced against all 
who refused to prove that they were not Christians, by 
trampling on a picture of the “Virgin and Child”; and 
all foreigners were banished from the empire, except a 
few Dutch merchants, who are still confined to an island 
in the harbour of Nagasaki. 

As they will, therefore, hold no intercourse with other 
nations, it is impossible to translate the Bible for them. 
The Bible Society has desired to do so, from the year 
1816. In the Report for 1817, will be found a very in¬ 
teresting letter from the Rev. J. Supper of Batavia, on 


402 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


this subject. This gentleman had made inquiries of 
persons who had formerly resided in Japan, and who 
declare “ that the people have no books ; that the officers 
of government pay frequent visits to every house, and if 
they discover even a small piece of paper which relates to 
the Christian worship, but particularly to the cross of 
Christ, the dwelling in which such a paper is found is 
immediately razed and destroyed, and the inhabitants 
condemned to death.” 

In November, 1831, a coasting-junk of about 200 tons 
burden, bound to Yedo, the capital of Japan, with a 
cargo consisting partly of rice and partly of tribute to the 
emperor, was driven by a storm into the Pacific Ocean. 
The crew, entirely ignorant of their course, let the vessel 
drift wherever the winds and waves would carry her, 
and, after being tossed about for fourteen months, were 
cast on shore near the Colombia river. During this long 
period they had subsisted chiefly on rice and fish. Eleven 
had died of scurvy, and the remaining three were nearly 
helpless when they landed. The Indians of that region 
plundered them of everything, and kept them captive for 
several months. 

At last their history became known to a benevolent 
factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, who sent them to 
England. In London, many persons took an interest in 
their welfare, and they were thence sent to China, and 
committed to the care of the superintendent of the 
British trade, with the hope that they might at last reach 
home. They arrived at Macao in 1835, and resided with 
Dr. Gutzlaff, who regarded it as a good opportunity to 
acquire some knowledge of their language. That admir¬ 
able missionary made use of the power thus attained to 
prepare a translation of the Gospel of John, in Japanese, 
in which he availed himself of the aid of the natives. 
These tliree wanderers, named Twakitchi or Lucky Rock, 
Kinkitchi or Lasting Happiness, and Otokitchi or Happy 
Sound, with four other shipwrecked Japanese, were taken 


LOOCHOO ISLANDS. 


403 


back to Japan, accompanied by Dr. Gutzlaff, in tbe ship 
“ Morrison,” but the vessel was fired upon, and they were 
not allowed to have any communication with the shore. 

In 1849, Dr. Gutzlaff being in this country, the Bible 
Society presented him with 40/. towards the printing of 
portions of the New Testament in Japanese, being, as he 
termed it, a pioneer translation,—a version that must still 
be tested. It does not appear that any opportunity has 
yet offered for its circulation; but should China be evan¬ 
gelised, we may hope, that, from its shores, the gospel 
would spread to Japan. The Chinese characters were 
formerly used in writing Japanese, and the written lan¬ 
guage now consists of modified and contracted Chinese 
characters.* The two languages are, however, different 
in their structure and their idiom. 

THE LOOCHOO ISLANDS. 

These islands are thirty-six in number, lying 300 miles 
south of Japan, and 500 miles east of China. The largest 
of them has been for seven years the seat of a Protestant 
Episcopal mission, the origin and history of which are 
certainly extremely interesting. Lieutenant Clifford, a 
naval officer, visited this island in 1816, on the occasion 
of Lord Amherst’s embassy to China. Being himself, 
then, as he states, in “unbelief, he lost the opportunity of 
making known the truth as it is in Jesus,” but when he 
afterwards felt the power of Divine truth, he remembered 
earnestly the condition of those poor islanders, and for 
fifteen years sought the means of sending to them the 
good tidings of the gospel. 

At last, in 1845, there was established the Loochoo 
Naval Mission. The missionary appointed was Dr. Bettel- 
heim, a learned Jew, but also a devoted Christian; he 
was master, already, of ten languages, and in nine months 


Prichard’s “Researches. 1 


404 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


acquired the Loochooan. He has since endured every 
variety of difficulty and privation imposed upon him by 
the government (which is all but Japanese in its restric¬ 
tions), during the work of compiling a grammar and dic¬ 
tionary of the language, and the translation of the two 
Gospels of Luke and John, the book of the Acts, and the 
Epistle to the Romans. 

The philanthropic support of the English Government, 
and the sympathising visit of the Bishop of Victoria, 
have helped to sustain him, in his most difficult position, 
of which he, with his heroic wife, feels all the importance, 
and of which he thus writes : 

“We stand here on the threshold of Japan, cheered 
by the one hope of diffusing the gospel in Loochoo ; and 
through Loochoo to Japan,—the last kingdom that stands 
out in proud enmity to the Saviour, teeming with millions 
of human beings, who are liars, gamblers, lazy-bodies, 
full of deceit and ignorance beyond belief. Brethren, I 
entreat you, in the name of an all-merciful Saviour, to 
pity Japan! Nothing has as yet been done for it, and it 
requires speedy aid.” 

We have little room for further details of the sufferings 
of this missionary, or the martyrdom of one of his con¬ 
verts, by confinement in constrained postures, by slow 
starvation, by beating on the head, by squeezing of the 
feet, performed, too, by his own father and mother! 
“The dark places of the earth are full of cruelty,” but 
the name of Jesus supports the true believer under every 
trial, as it has done poor Satchi-hama, even unto death; 
and his history, with that of his teacher, may be one of 
those which shall arouse Christendom to perform its duty 
towards Japan and towards Loochoo. 

The importance of the Loochooan translation of the 
Scriptures will be seen from the declaration of the Bishop 
of Victoria, that the Loochooan is a mere dialect of the 
Japanese language, with many Chinese terms engrafted 
upon it. Dr. Bettelheim states, that the labours of the 


AUSTRALIA. 


405 


brethren who have translated the word of God into Chi¬ 
nese, are often of very great assistance to him. He has 
preached to, and made himself understood by, Japanese 
sailors visiting the island ; while, in his own words, “the 
gold of California, and the Atlantic pouring through the 
Darien canal into the Pacific, will cause an immense Eu¬ 
ropean and American trade, via, Loochoo and Japan, with 
China, which makes these islands of great importance.* 
The journal of Dr. B- must stir every Christian heart to 
sympathy. He is lodged by the Loochooan government in 
an idol temple; they insist on finding his food, which is 
often unwholesome and insufficient; and they surround 
his house with guards, which they continually change, 
lest he should convert them. He has, however, many 
secret converts, of whom Satchi-hama was one. When 
the people are permitted to listen to his teaching, and to 
read the word of God which he is preparing for them, 
“ the truth shall prevail”—even in Loochoo. 


CHAPTER IX. 

JUBILEE REVIEW CONTINUED.-CIRCULATION OF THE BIBLE IN 

AUSTRALIA, BORNEO, TAHITI, RAROTONGA, MANGAIA, NEW ZEA¬ 
LAND, AND SOUTH AFRICA.-THE BIBLE AMONG MAHOMEDANS, 

IN ROMAN-CATHOLIC COUNTRIES, IN AUSTRIA, IN SPAIN AND 
FORTUGAL, IN SWITZERLAND AND ITALY, AND IN FRANCE. 

AUSTRALIA. 

Australia is one of the fields of labour especially con¬ 
templated by the Society in this its Jubilee Year. The 
Auxiliary Society at Sydney was first established in the 

* For further information concerning the Loochoo Mission, see 
its 7th Report, published at 48, Salisbury-square, Fleet-street, price 
one shilling. 



406 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


year 1817, and is stated never to have been in more 
flourishing circumstances than at the present time. The 
sales of Bibles and Testaments during the past year had 
increased threefold. The following account of its anni¬ 
versary meeting has just been received: “The interest 
throughout was well sustained; and the brilliant address 
of the Rev. John Beorly told upon the audience with 
electric power. The instant effect was a cheque for 110/., 
handed to him on the platform, to aid the funds of the 
auxiliary; and during the evening the intense interest 
which had been excited was so well sustained by the 
Rev. W. Gill and the other speakers, as to induce the 
grand result of 400/. towards the maintenance of colpor¬ 
teurs, etc. We have never had such a meeting! Dr. 
Ross’s large church was crowded, and every one seemed 
greatly pleased and interested.” 

The Society at Adelaide reports that the emigrants to 
this land of gold are in general well supplied with the 
Bible, principally owing to the efforts of the Bible Society 
at home, and the parting gifts of friends. There are 
auxiliary societies, also, in comparatively active operation 
at Melbourne, Geelong, Hobart Town, Launceston, and 
other places. By the instrumentality of these auxiliaries, 
upwards of 20,000 copies of the Scriptures were put in 
circulation last year, while considerable amounts have been 
sent by them for the general objects of the Society. 

MALAYSIA.—BORNEO. 

Borneo and its Dajack population are receiving from 
the British and Foreign Bible Society the Dajack New 
Testament. The Rev. A. Hardeland says: “ The first 
edition is almost exhausted, and so would some few 
thousand copies more be, if we had them. When, some 
thirteen years back, we, in the name of the Lord God, 
first planted the banner of the Cross in this place, not one 
single Dajack was able to read, and for several years no 


MALAYSIA.—BORNEO. 


407 


one evinced the least desire to learn : their food was the 
most disgusting reptiles ; and their only relief from abject 
idleness was the excitement of hideous devil-festivals, 
and a greedy desire to possess human skulls. Oh! how 
swift were the feet of the idle Dajacks to shed blood ! 
But now many hundreds have learned to read fluently, 
and are provided with New Testaments. There are three 
mission-stations, besides Pulopetak, and at least 1000 
scholars ; and the desire after books is very great. We 
are obliged to refuse many applications; the books are 
well taken care of and diligently perused: usually the 
receiver makes a wooden box to contain his treasure, and 
in this box it accompanies him wherever he goes. When¬ 
ever they paddle abroad in their arut (a trunk of a tree 
hollowed out) on the broad rivers, the little box is seldom 
absent, and has besides a covering of leaves ; and if the 
arut is overturned amid the waves, by a gust of wind, 
the occupant seizes upon his little box, swims with it to 
the shore, and jumps for joy when he finds the book is 
uninjured.” 

Whoever has read of the Dajacks of Borneo, and has 
imagined the large houses in which they reside, by hun¬ 
dreds together, whose ornaments are human heads dan¬ 
gling from the ceiling, will rejoice to hear that in such 
buildings multitudes now sometimes listen to the Scrip¬ 
ture-reader, or some native Dajack, who reads aloud and 
in a recitative tone of voice, which is their habit. By 
this means the women hear the word of God : they have 
not yet come either to school or to church, but they are 
now accessible to instruction in their own houses. When 
passing, in the evening, the banks of the rivers where the 
villages are built, one hears in all directions the voice of 
the reader resounding to the opposite bank. The Bible 
will soon conquer the mania for human skulls, which these 
savages have been accustomed to string round their waists 
when dancing, putting food in their mouths, and the 
betel-nut between their ghastly lips. 


408 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY, 


POLYNESIA.—TAHITI. 

The volcanic and coral islands of Polynesia have a 
history of their own, so interesting, that we dare not 
enter upon it in detail, though it richly deserves to be 
explored. 

Missionary enterprise began in Tahiti, in 1796. For a 
period of sixteen years there was no apparent fruit of 
devoted labour, and the islands remained sunk in cruel 
idolatry. Then came the change. Two servants had 
united for prayer, and these in the absence of the mis¬ 
sionaries multiplied into a body of praying people. From 
that time success has followed, so that populous islands to 
the- distance of 2000 miles in circuit from Tahiti, in the 
bosom of the Pacific, have been brought under the influ¬ 
ence of Divine truth. In 1820, openings of the most 
promising kind presented themselves for the distribution 
of the word of God. We have already contemplated Mr. 
Williams at work on his translation of the Scriptures. In 
1820, an edition of 3000 copies of Luke’s Gospel was 
printed in Tahitian ; 10,000 copies of the book of the Acts 
and the other Gospels followed : those who were taught 
in the schools instructed, in the cool evenings, the more 
ignorant. In 1824, a further edition circulated in various 
islands; and all this while, and up to 1830, the New 
Testament constituted their entire library. 

In 1838, the Old Testament was completed and printed 
under the superintendence of the Rev. H. Nott, who had 
landed on the island forty years before, as a missionary, 
from the “Duff.” These books were eagerly purchased, 
at two dollars each ; and those who had no money hurried 
away to sea with their nets, hoping that the proceeds of 
their fishing would enable them to buy a copy. 

In 1839, the martyr-blood of the missionary Williams 
stained the soil of Erromanga, where he had intended to 
plant the standard of the Cross. Then came the French 


POLYNESIA.—TAHITI. 


409 


protectorate and its Roman-Catholic power to disturb the 
religious peace of tbe islands, and to test tbe influence 
of the large circulation of the word of God, which had 
taken place among them. Still, in 1841, the London 
missionaries write : ‘ 4 It is most delightful to see the in¬ 
superable thirst of this people for the Bible. They refuse 
to take their necessary food, if denied the Book, while 
those who obtain it will leap, kiss it for joy, press it to 
their hearts, and say, ‘ Now, my eyes will close at night: 
now, I will try to get one for my son.’ ” 

When the war broke out in 1844, owing to the French 
aggression, and the people were obliged to take to the 
mountains, many of them at first carried their Bibles to 
the missionaries and said, “ Keep these in safety, until we 
have beaten our foes, and then we will ask for them 
again.” But some time afterwards they returned, saying, 
“We are likely to be long absent from our dwellings; 
give us our Bibles again, for we want them in the moun¬ 
tains ” ; and though every effort has been used to seduce 
them from the simplicity of their faith, their Bibles have 
caused them to stand firm, and we hear of no perverts. 

At the present time, the Parent Society is importuned 
to print 10,000 copies of the New Testament for the 
youth in the schools. It appears to be the design of the 
French local government to force the missionaries from the 
island, that popery may renew its efforts with redoubled 
energy. Mr. Howe writes in the Report of 1853, “ They 
have managed at last to close our mouths in public in the 
native tongue. The first link of the popish chain has 
been riveted on the Tahitian nation, and ere long it will 
be made to feel the whole weight of that chain.” The 
entire facts of the case are, however, a powerful argument 
in favour of the free circulation of the word of God. The 
Romish priests have now been in Tahiti between thirteen 
and fourteen years, and not one convert has been fairly 
made to their system. 

Some time since, several Christian natives of Tahiti 


410 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


called on one of the missionaries, and related to him a 
conversation they had just had with the Roman-Catholic 
priest. They said he had shown them a large tree, with 
root, trunk, branches, and twigs, and explained to them 
the meaning of it. At the root was a lamb, and that, said 
the priest, meant the Saviour, the Lamb of God; and the 
tree, he said, represented the Roman-Catholic Church; at 
the bottom of the trunk, next above the root, was Peter, 
the first Bishop of Rome, next to Jesus Christ. 

“Yes!” said the Tahitians; “we have read about 
Peter, we have got two letters of his, which we read in 
our Testament: that was the man who denied his Master ; 
but the Saviour looked on him, and that look melted his 
heart, and the Saviour forgave him. But who are all 
these,” said they, “rising upon the trunk of the tree, 
above Peter ?” 

“ Ah !” said the priest, “ they are the popes, the suc¬ 
cessors of Peter.” 

“ Ah! we don’t know about them,” said the natives ; 
“but, never mind, we've got the root! Now what are 
the straight branches that go off from the trunk ? ” 

“ They are the different orders of men in the church,” 
said the priest; “ monks and friars, and so forth.” 

“We don’t know them, either,” said the people; “ but, 
go on; we’ve got the root, so we can do without them. 
But, pray what are these twigs dropping off at the end of 
the branches ?” 

“ Ah! they are the heretics, falling quick into the 
flames below.” 

“ Indeed!” said the Tahitians; “then whereabouts are 
wef" 

“ Ah!” said the priest, “you are there,” pointing up 
to one corner; “ there’s Luther, a decayed twig; he is 
dropping off, you see, into the flames; and that’s where 
he is, and where you and your missionaries will all go, 
for you are hereties.” 

“Ah, well!” said the astonished Tahitians; “such is 


RAROTONGA. 


411 


the picture, and such is the meaning you give us; hut, 
however, we've got the root , and so we think we cannot 
be very far wrong, and we mean to keep to that.” 

“Iam the vine,” said the Saviour, “ye are the branches: 
abide in me. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the 
same bringeth forth much fruit. If a man abide not 
in me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered” 
(John 15). 


RAROTONGA. 

In 1852, it was mentioned that 5000 copies of the 
whole Bible, in the Rarotongan language, had been sent 
off by the missionary ship, the “ John Williams.” The 
missionary who had superintended its passing through the 
press, in England, the Rev. A. Buzacott, returned with it. 
The account of his voyage and of his reception has lately 
been made public. He says,— 

“ I cannot well describe the reception we met with, 
when we arrived at our beloved island-home. As soon 
as we approached the shore, a simultaneous rush was 
made for the boat. The crew jumped out, and we soon 
found ourselves, boat and all, upon the shoulders of the 
people. Eight of us were thus borne away towards our 
house, where they put us down. They crowded round 
us,—the men shouting for joy, and the women weeping 
for the same cause. They were very anxious to get pos¬ 
session of the Bibles. On the appointed day, the case 
being opened which contained them, we offered prayer 
and thanksgiving, and gave them a short account of the 
British and Foreign Bible Society. The chiefs were 
each of them presented with a copy in superior binding, 
then those who had deposited purchase-money received 
theirs. All were soon gone. To the students in the 
college, the arrival is invaluable, as they never had the 
complete Scriptures in their hands before.” 


412 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


MANGAIA. 

The Rev. G. Gill says: “We have received here 1340 
copies, which had been long expected. Those who had 
paid for them beforehand, said, ‘ Perhaps Barakoti * is 
dead; the Society cannot finish it, and our hopes will be 
disappointed.’ But when the vessel hove in sight, their 
joy was unbounded. They dragged with delight the 
heavy packages over the reef of coral,f for they knew 
that the Bibles had come. It is their custom, when 
engaged in drawing or carrying heavy burdens, to en¬ 
courage one another by the voice of song. As they 
brought the cases into the mission-house, they sang in 
their own language— 

“ ‘ The word has come! One volume complete ! 

Let us learn the good word ! Our joy is great! 

The whole word has come; the whole word has come ! ’ 

“ The day the Bibles were distributed, we received 10/. 
for them, and before the week’s end, 40/. 

“ At our usual missionary prayer-meeting, an old man, 
whose remarks often cheer my own spirit, arose and ad¬ 
dressed us from Job 5. 17—19. He said, ‘ I have often 
spoken to you from a text out of other parts of the Bible 
which we had, but this is the first time we have seen the 
book of Job. It is a new book to us. When I received 
my Bible,’ continued he, ‘ I never slept until I had 
finished this new book of Job. I read it all. Oh ! what 
joy I felt in reading his wonderful life! Let us all read 
the whole book. Let us go to the missionary by day 
and by night, and inquire into the meaning of the new 

* Mr. Buzacott. 

f Mr. Williams beautifully describes this reef in his “Missionary 
Enterprises,” p. 24. It is a barrier which belts the island against 
the long, rolling waves of the Pacific, within which the waters 
flow, clear and transparent, over corals of every form and hue. 


MANGAIA.—NEW ZEALAND. 


413 


parts which we have not read. Let us be at his door 
when he rises. Let us stop him when we meet him, that 
he may tell us of these new books.’ And lifting up his 
new Bible before the congregation, with the excited 
energy of a feeble old man, he said, ‘ My brethren and 
sisters, this is my resolve: the dust shall never cover my 
new Bible; the moths shall never eat it; the mildew 
shall not rot it; my light! my joy! 

One more extract, and we must leave these lovely 
coral isles. The Rev. A. W. Murray, from Samoa, one 
of the Navigators’ isles, writes: “ The diffusion of Scrip¬ 
ture light, always important, is especially so at the pre¬ 
sent time, when the powers of darkness are pursuing 
with such restless and wide-spread activity their efforts 
to perpetuate their dreary reign. The Romish bishop of 
Oceanica, as he is styled, has lately taken up his abode 
in Samoa, and intends, it is reported, fixing his head¬ 
quarters here for the future. The papists have not as 
yet made much progress in Samoa, nor throughout Poly¬ 
nesia, and it is probable they will not make very much. 
We have got the start of them: the ground is pre-occu- 
pied by an element more than all others destructive to 
popery—light, light from heaven! ” 

From the Fee-jee islands, which are wholly occupied 
by the Wesleyan missionaries, the reports are similar. A 
grant of 5000 New Testaments in the Fee-jee language 
has been made to them ; and the sacred Scriptures are 
declared to be highly prized, while popery is there like¬ 
wise seeking to pervert the poor heathen to its own 
superstitions. It tries to persuade them that they cannot 
understand the word of God when they read it. But 
they do understand it, and prize it “ above rubies.” 

NEW ZEALAND. 

The missionaries of the Church Missionary Society are 
pursuing the same work of evangelisation among the 


414 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


leafy glens and mountains, the lovely lakes and rocky 
islets, of New Zealand, where for thirty-four years they 
have perseveringly laboured and translated the Scrip¬ 
tures: they have there 315 native catechists and teachers. 
The Wesleyan missionaries have also laboured with great 
diligence and considerable success in this distant field. 
The New Zealander, even in his ignorance and dirt, used 
to be called “the prince of savages”; but now that he 
has been civilised by Christianity, his race will probably 
become the most powerful, as it is the most enterprising, 
of all the aboriginal tribes of the South Seas. In 1852, 
15,000 copies of the New Testament in the Maori lan¬ 
guage were prepared by the British and Foreign Bible 
Society for these natives, who call the book of Psalms, 
“ the David.” Even the yet wild tribes among them 
had respect to the Scriptures as the “ word of God,” 
while they tore up the “Encyclopedia Britannica” for 
cartridge-paper during the last war. In New Zealand, 
also, the Roman-Catholic priests are equal in number to 
the Protestant missionaries; but the Bible among the 
people proves to be their constant hindrance. When 
they urge upon the New Zealander the elevation of the 
host, the belief in purgatory, the adoration of the Virgin, 
or the duty of confession to the priest, his simple answer 
is, “ I do not find it in my Book ” Altogether 96,220 
portions of the word of God have been diffused among a 
population of 150,000 natives, amongst whom cannibalism 
has now ceased. 

To complete our survey of the heathen, we must turn 
again to— 

SOUTH AFRICA. 

In 1821, the South African Auxiliary Bible Society 
was formed; and, through Dr. Philip, supplies of the 
Scriptures were continually made to the different mis¬ 
sionary stations. In 1801, not a Hottentot throughout 
the Cape Colony would have been found able to read ; 


SOUTH AFRICA.—THE BECHUANAS. 


415 


but now readers are found, and Bibles are desired, in 
every village. In 1846, Mr. Bourne, one of the valuable 
agents of tlie Society, visited the colony, with a supply 
of 20,000 copies of Dutch and English Scriptures. His 
travels in Africa extended to more than 3000 miles, and 
to many who were destitute of the Scriptures, grants were 
liberally made. The Bible is especially needed among 
colonists, who, from their scattered position, have no 
means of attending the public worship of God, for months 
together. Since the return of Mr. Bourne, 20,000 more, 
copies have been forwarded, though the long and dis¬ 
astrous Caffre war has thrown great impediments in the 
way of their distribution. 

The Bechuanas, whose number is calculated at some¬ 
thing like 30,000 people, are spread over a large portion 
of Southern and Central Africa. In this region the Rev. 
Robert Moffat has laboured since 1817: his version of the 
New Testament was published by the Society in 1841. 
It was received by the natives with eager gratitude: the 
Old Testament is gradually completing. Mr. Moffat, in 
the midst of his work, writes to congratulate the Bible 
Society on its perseverance in “its noble enterprise of 
giving the Book of books—God’s Book of life—to a sick 
and dying world” ; and. he says, after thirty-six years of 
missionary experience, “ How little, how insignificant , are 
all other enterprises compared with this!” He speaks of 
the Bible as “ garnishing dens and caves of the earth with 
heavenly delights, even unto this day” ; and he adds that 
“ the Bechuana translation of the Old Testament would 
progress at less tortoise speed, but for the claims of other 
kinds of missionary labour, besides translation.” 

And now, let us see what allusions are made in the 
Report of 1853, as to the progress of the Bible among the 
Mahomedans. 


416 


THE BOOK AND ITS STOliY. 


MAHOMEDANS. 

In 1853, from Karass, in Tartary, Mr. Galloway, a 
Scottish missionary, writes: “ The Mahomedansare pecu¬ 
liarly prejudiced against the gospel of the grace of God; 
yet it is encouraging to see, that the more they come in 
contact with the word of truth, the more their prejudices 
are weakened. We cannot speak of many conversions 
among them, hut they can now hear the Bible read or 
quoted with some degree of patience. They do not 
throw the Book out of their hands as they once did, or 
cut out passages obnoxious to them, or burn it, as they 
used to do.” 

In the year 1844, from Penang, the Rev. T. Beighton 
writes: “ I never saw such a spirit of inquiry excited 
among the Mahomedans as at present. When the truth 
of our Lord’s Divinity is established among them, their 
delusion will receive a heavy blow. Now that the word 
of God has been extensively made known in countries 
where Mahomedans are mixed with the population, and 
its sound is still going forth, they are often led calmly 
to compare the lies of their prophet with the truth of 
the gospel, and to strike the balance in favour of the 
Divine Scriptures. 

“ The population of Constantinople and its environs is 
estimated at a million at least; the proportions are con¬ 
sidered to be correctly given as follows: Turks, 520,000; 
Greeks, 200,000; Armenians, 180,000; Jews, 70,000; 
Europeans, 30,000. Amongst them a goodly number of 
missionaries are labouring diligently and faithfully,— 
eight from the American board, and six from England 
and Scotland. These servants of our common Lord are 
working together for the glory of God and the advance¬ 
ment of the kingdom of Christ in the world, ‘ esteeming 
each other in love.’ They all distribute the Scriptures by 
the aid of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and have 


AUSTRIA. 


417 


all adopted more or less the system of colportage. They 
speak of an increased and increasing call for the word of 
God.” 

It would be easy to multiply individual instances of 
renunciation of the Mahomedan faith; but we have no 
space for them. The friends of the Bible may rejoice in 
its silent and gradual influence over followers of die false 
prophet, and pass on with us to the reconsideration of 
our third division,—the work which our Scriptures are 
performing among the Roman and Greek Churches of 
the world. 


AUSTRIA. 

There is no doubt that, in this country, the wide dis¬ 
tribution of the word of God has excited a great reaction, 
—a reaction of hostility, especially in the countries ruled 
by despotic power. Despotism and popery clasp hands 
and work together, and one is able to stir up the other to 
shut out the Bible from its territories, even in the midst 
of this nineteenth century. “ Light is come into the 
world; but men love darkness rather than light, because 
their deeds are evil”; and hence such scenes as are alluded 
to in the Report for 1853, in the countries of Austria and 
Hungary, when the government, demanding to have all 
the Scriptures in the depots at Guns, Pesth, and Vienna, 
sent out of the country , the decree was rigorously en¬ 
forced. Two hundred and four bales and 125 cases, con¬ 
taining 58,087 copies of Bibles and Testaments, eithei 
bound or in sheets, were conveyed beyond the frontiers 
of the Austrian territory, under the charge of a detach¬ 
ment of gens d’armes. This took place amidst the un¬ 
availing tears and sighs of tens of thousands of the 
people, waiting for and anxious to possess the precious 
volumes of which they were so mercilessly bereft. 

In 1852, it was thus recorded of these countries: 

“ Multitudes are now in possession of the Scriutures, 

•28 


418 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


who, only a short time since, scarcely knew that God 
had spoken in times past unto the fathers by the pro¬ 
phets, and in these last days unto us by His Son.” In 
some parts, the desire for the word is described as a 
“rage,” and a “famishing”; and the priests of Rome, 
becoming aware of this, denounced the Books from the 
pulpit. The government then insisted that they should 
be withdrawn from the country. 

Mr. Millard, the agent of the Society, now writes: 
“We have at last left that fruitful and promising field of 
labour, glad enough, as far as our persons are concerned, 
to get out of the clutches of our foes; but it is distressing 
to think of the state of the people we have left behind. 
What has been done is but a sprinkling, which has but 
served to inform or remind the people that there is such 
a thing as ‘ living water ’; and had not the arm of force 
interfered, and been tolerated by a Providence whose 
ways are past finding out, the circulation of the Scrip¬ 
tures would have increased far beyond our provision for 
it. Whenever my thoughts return to that wretched 
country, I cannot help again and again thanking God 
for what has been effected before the interdict, and look¬ 
ing back with gratitude on the number of 41,659 volumes 
distributed since the 1st of October, 1850.” 

SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 

Spain and Portugal, we regret to state, are completely 
barred against the Bible. A concordat has been con¬ 
cluded between the courts of Spain and Rome; the power 
of the priesthood is paramount; every book introduced 
into the schools must receive their approval, and they do 
not approve of the free use of the Bible. In 1828, 1829, 
and 1830, there was some circulation of the Scriptures. 
Messrs. Courtois, bankers of Toulouse,* introduced them 

* Where, in 1229, the Bible was prohibited. See page 127. 


SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 419 

into those countries by means of soldiers and pedlars 
passing through Toulouse. In 1835, when the cholera 
drove many of the higher classes of Spaniards to Toulouse 
and the towns of the south of France, these same Chris¬ 
tian friends introduced the Bible, wherever possible, to 
their notice; and in 1836, by colporteurs in the Pyrenees, 
and by visits to Spanish prisoners, they persevered in their 
efforts. Two other friends who visited Madrid were 
favoured with some measure of influence and success; so 
that, in 1837, at Barcelona, 1600 Spanish Testaments 
were sold; and in one instance the simple perusal of the 
Scriptures was the means of imparting the knowledge of 
salvation. In 1838, notwithstanding all the confusion 
and misery that reigned in the country, the Holy Scrip¬ 
tures gained a silent entrance, and were openly bought 
and sold in several of the principal towns. Between 5000 

and 6000 copies were disposed of. From B-, the 

gentleman to whom the Society intrusted the work thus 
wrote: “ The expressions of gratitude for the Books are 
innumerable. It is said, ‘ The words and the history of 
the crucified Saviour and of his followers are most in¬ 
teresting to us. We were altogether ignorant of such a 
Book, and it delights us.’ The higher orders kept aloof, 
and but few came for a copy; but workmen,—masons, 
shoemakers, carpenters, tailors,—streamed almost in a 
continued file to purchase the good Book.” 

From V-, he writes: “In six days I sold here 

400 copies. How often do I wish I had wings, that I 
might be able to avail myself of the extraordinary dis¬ 
position of the people to purchase the blessed Book !” 

In an ancient Moorish city, the same gentleman dis¬ 
posed of 369 copies: many were sold to the priests. As 
he walked along the streets of the towns where the Bible 
had been thus distributed, he could perceive shopkeepers 
and others reading their copies. Sometimes he entered 
into conversation with them which ended in tears roll¬ 
ing down their cheeks. 




420 THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

Another ardent and enterprising friend of the Society, 
having carried through the press at Madrid an edition of 
5000 copies of the New Testament, spent five months of 
the year 1838 in travelling through the provinces, to 
bring the Books into circulation. He then returned to 
Madrid, and opened a room for the sale of the Scriptures, 
which, after a short time, was closed by the authorities. 
While it remained open, many were sold. He also 
printed at Madrid a translation of the Gospel of Luke, 
in the Gitano or Gipsey language, for the benefit of this 
interesting, singular, but degraded race of people, who 
are very numerous in some parts of Spain. 

In 1839, the door seems to have closed, and this un- 
happy country has added to its other calamities, and its 
responsibility, the almost total suppression of the efforts 
to circulate within its borders the precious word of God; 
not, however, before 16,000 copies of the Scriptures had 
been scattered through its plains and valleys, during a 
space of five years. 

SWITZERLAND AND NORTH ITALY. 

In 1845, Lieutenant Graydon, who had rendered such 
essential service in Spain, continued his labours in 
Switzerland. His baggage-van was fitted up after his 
own model, and so conveniently arranged, that he could 
with ease turn it into a .regular book-stall. He presented 
himself at large fairs and markets, and extraordinary 
success attended his operations. At Berne, in four days, 
he sold 1200 copies; at Lausanne, 1667 copies: 25,694 
copies were purchased in the course of three years, and 
very many of them by Roman Catholics. They were 
dispersed in five languages, and 4000 of them were sold 
in the Hotel Gibbon, which is built on the very ground 
so often paced by the celebrated author of the “ Decline 
and Fall of the Roman Empire,”—one who used his 
great talents to undermine the faith of thousands in the 


NORTH ITALY.—FRANCE. 


421 

truth of revelation, and sought to trace to Christianity, 
as a source, every evil that has disfigured the world since 
its introduction. 

In 1849, after visiting his depbts in Switzerland, Lieut. 
Gray don passed to Milan and Turin at the time of the 
revolution there. It was with difficulty he could secure 
a corner in the newspaper for the announcement of his 
peaceful mission. The authorities, however, did not in¬ 
terfere, and the people received him with courtesy. The 
result of the two visits he paid to the north of Italy was 
the sale of 12,000 copies. 

In Tuscany, when the archduke was restored, in 
1849, and the Church of Rome resumed its former as¬ 
cendancy, one of the earliest acts of the government was 
to seize and lock up the edition of Martini’s Testament, 
just issued at Florence, stop the presses, carry off’ the 
type anu paper, subject the printers to a civil process, 
and banish Capt. Pakenham, who had superintended the 
work, at a few days’ notice. From the time that the pope 
returned from his exile, every impediment has been thrown 
in the way of the Bible Society in Lombardy, Tuscany, 
and the Papal States. The imprisonment of the Madiai 
and many others, the search for the Scriptures in private 
houses, the forcible attempt to check the expression of 
opinion, and the mandates of excommunication against 
those who shall enter a Protestant place of worship, or 
abet a society in circulating the Scriptures, all indicate 
that Rome is her old self. The Book condemns her, and 
she tries to nide it. We cannot but rejoice in the fact 
that more than 87,000 copies have been distributed in 
various ways, even in Italy, and that the desire for the 
sacred volume is increasing continually. 

FRANCE. 

Of France, so much has been saic* in former chapters, 
that but little remains to be added. The British and 


422 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Foreign Bible Society looks upon her with the deepest 
interest, places her always first in its Reports, and watches 
with increasing anxiety over her zealous band of colpor¬ 
teurs. 

On the table of the committee-room in Earl-street, 
now stands a vase of artificial flowers, composed of small 
coloured beads. You would be surprised to hear of such 
an ornament in such a place; but that vase has a history. 
It is a Jubilee token from France, and has very recently 
arrived. The donors, who wish to remain unknown, are 
French soldiers, belonging to various regiments which 
successively have formed the garrison of a certain town. 
This “ bouquet of gratitude,” as it is called, has been 
prepared, during many evenings of several winters, by 
skilful hands, in successive regiments, while listening to 
the reading of the Scriptures and religious books; and 
when finished, the makers were very desirous of presenting 
it as an offering to the British and Foreign Bible Society, 
in token of their lively gratitude for its having placed 
within their reach the word of God, to which they have 
had grace given them to surrender their hearts. 

The Society’s agent, Monsieur de P., has issued from 
the depot in Paris, from April 1833 to January 1853, no 
fewer than 2,271,709 copies of the Scriptures! This is 
the work of about twenty years. 

The whole issues since the depdt was established are 
3,002,359 copies, more than three-fourths of which have 
been placed in the hands of Roman Catholics; and a 
million and a half of these have been circulated by col¬ 
porteurs. The prayers of the Huguenots are in a great 
measure answered. There is not a single department in 
France (and indeed very few of the parishes in those 
departments), which has not been visited by these humble 
and devoted agents. The remotest corners of her countrv- 
districts have now heard of the Bible, and know that the 
Book contains the words of God. In many places “ Uncle 
Tom” has heralded it, and the colporteurs have been 


PROTESTANT CHURCH AT ALENCON. 


423 


asked, “ Is it Uncle Tom's Bible It must be observed, 
that the work which the Bible has to do in France is of 
two kinds,—that among Roman-Catholics, and that in the 
ancient Protestant Church of France, in which great re¬ 
vivals are now taking place. Its members are increasingly 
numerous. They are now as many as they were before 
the persecution at the revocation of the edict of Nantes. 
When left without pastors and teachers, the remnant, who 
could not flee, lapsed by degrees into deep ignorance, their 
Protestantism becoming in many cases merely nominal, 
but the Lord has not forgotten the seed of the Huguenots ! 
England has as yet done comparatively little for them; 
but she only needs to know of their position to do more. 

Extensive religious movements have taken place in some 
provinces. “ A Protestant church has just been formed 
at Alenin, the rise of which is owing to the distribution 
of the sacred Scriptures effected by a colporteur. On 
Sunday, the 24th of September, 1853, the first service 
was held, in presence of 400 persons. The prayers, 
the solemn reading of the Bible, the sermon, and the 
well-executed singing of several hymns, produced a deep 
and powerful impression on the whole of the audience. 

“ Amongst these new disciples of the gospel, about 
twenty were pointed out, who, in the most boisterous 
weather, had come a distance of nearly seven leagues, in 
order to be present at a ceremony which, for them, was 
no mere outward form. Seventeen of these worthy pea¬ 
sants had come in carts, having for several days previously 
saved, sous by sous, from their necessary expenditure , the 
trifling sum which they required for the journey. We 
were truly and deeply humbled at witnessing this proof 
of zeal anu love for the things of God. As for these good 
people themselves, they thought nothing of the matter-. 
‘ We so greatly love the Bible,’ said they, ‘that, to hear 
it spoken about, we would willingly go much farther 
still.’ 

“ At three o’clock in the afternoon there was another 


424 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


service "held for the purpose of baptizing two infants, 
brought by two families belonging to the new members 
of the Alenin flock; after that, the Lord’s Supper was 
partaken of by the Christian friends who had come from 
a distance, by Mr. Audebez and his large family, as 
well as, to our great joy, by ten converts—by ten new 
Christians, and who had become such since they had re¬ 
ceived the Bible from the hands of your colporteur. 

“ Some of these colporteurs experience much difficulty 
and persecution, not at head quarters , but from sub-offi¬ 
cials, w r ho hinder the work as far as they can. Their 
enmity, however, has a contrary effect to that which they 
intend; and the more the circulation of the Scriptures is 
opposed, the more frequently do we find individuals 
looking out for the colporteurs, in order to purchase 
copies; declaring that the prohibition of all the bishops, 
and archbishops, and even the Pope himself, shall not 
prevent them from procuring, reading, and studying the 
gospel of Jesus Christ. Some of these are so poor that 
they have to club together to purchase a Bible, and even 
a New Testament, and sometimes to go without a great 
portion of their food for the day to procure it. 

“ Who will venture, after such a fact, to utter a doubt 
as to the positive and blessed results of the work of Bible 
colportage ? 

“ This, then, is the moment, the fitting moment, to 
spread over the country, in increased numbers, the dis¬ 
tributors of the sacred Scriptures; this is the moment to 
pray, with renewed fervour, that God may graciously 
accompany their efforts with his abundant blessing.” 

BELGIUM. 

It is in the Keport for 1837 that special notice is first 
taken of the successful labours and unwearied zeal of 
Mr. W. P. Tiddy, the Society’s agent in Belgium, who, 
with the colporteurs under his control, sold in little more 
than the space of one year 8420 volumes of Scripture, the 


BELGIUM. 


425 


greater part being Testaments, which, however, he says, 
induce afterwards the desire for Bibles. These were sold 
in the French, English, Flemish. German, Dutch, Portu¬ 
guese, Polish, Italian, Greek, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, 
and Hebrew languages, and showed an amazing increase 
of demand for the Scriptures through the steady employ¬ 
ment of the system of colportage. The agents went 
through all the towns', left them for a few months, and 
then commenced again. We know not where to select 
from Mr. Tiddy’s Reports for Belgium, any more than 
from Monsieur de P.’s for Prance; for they would form 
altogether volumes of unspeakable interest, and would 
now comprise a series of facts extending over many years. 
We must give two or three. 

From Dour, Mr. Tiddy writes: “ I know not how to 
describe to you the delightful prospect before us in this 
neighbourhood, or the wonderful effects of the distribution 
of the sacred Scriptures here. Walking one day with 
M. de Yisme, he exclaimed, ‘ It is the Bible that fills my 
church; it is the Bible that brings the people to hear the 
preached gospel; it is the Bible that brings the people to 
me to ask about their souls. I never hear anything of 
them , till they have somewhere read the Bible.' This de¬ 
partment has been well visited for years past, and still the 
Books find a ready sale.” 

We ought to have noticed in the account of the So¬ 
ciety’s library, a Bible presented by Mr. Tiddy,—a Bible 
which ten or twelve persons in Dour had subscribed for 
together, and which had been purchased in Holland, 
where it cost thirty-two francs. It is an edition of Oster- 
vald, and the contrast in the present price of a Bible is a 
strong proof of the advantages of Bible Societies. 

Some one Bible in a village, thus procured at great 
cost, -nee excited the rage of some priests; for it was 
known to them that such existed ; but they could never 
find it, though many a search was made for it. The 
persons to whom it belonged used to hide it away by day, 


426 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


and by night go into the woods with it, and there hang a 
lantern up to a tree, and read it. 

At other times they would agree to meet in some old 
burrow, or other secret place, for the same purpose. They 
sang also the Psalms of David to song-tunes, to deceive 
those who might overhear them. One day when the men 
were absent at their work, and the women gone to the 
next market-town, a general search was made,—for the 
priests were always on the watch to see when the house 
which contained it was left without any one but the child 
or some young person. They made a regular search, but, 
like all others up to that moment, in vain, and the priests 
and police turned to go to their houses; but on their way 
back, one of the policemen said, “I am sure, if we go 
back to such a house (naming it), we shall find the Bible. 
I observed that in that house the child was in the cradle; 
and, whether it was asleep or awake, the girl sitting by it 
continually rocked it.” 

Arrived at the house, they went direct to the cradle, 
took up the child, turned out the bed, and found the 
Bible. The little girl who watched it was only ten years 
old, and she burst into tears; but they rejoiced over their 
success, and walked away in triumph. 

The poor villagers wept when they came home in the 
evening, and said they would rather have heard that their 
houses had been burnt to the ground than that their 
Bible should have been taken from them. They tried to 
get it again, but that was impossible. Alas! for the 
poor solitary Bible, and blessings on the era of Bible 
Societies! 

In the year 1838, the work of circulating the Scrip¬ 
tures in Belgium still further assumed an unlooked-for 
extent and importance. The committee could only ex¬ 
claim: “ This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in 
our eyes! ” The issue of 8420 volumes in a year had 
now increased to 20,548 volumes, 17,000 of which had 
been circulated by the brave colporteurs, persevering in 


COLPORTAGE IN BELGIUM. 


427 

their peaceful, self-denying labours, though in the midst 
of reproaches, insults, and threatenings. Their books have 
often been stolen, forced away, torn, and burnt before their 
eyes; but “through evil report and through good report” 
they have held on their way, sometimes owing their per¬ 
sonal safety to the interference of the civil powers, and 
at other times to military authority. 

They have had to contend with the potent opposition 
of all the patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and bishops 
of the Roman-Catholic Church, who were thus addressed 
by Pope Leo XII., true to the principles of his ancient 
system, in his encyclical letter of 1824, given at Rome in 
the first year of his pontificate: 

“You are aware, venerable brethren, that a certain 
society, called the Bible Society, strolls with effrontery 
through the world; which Society, contemning the tradi¬ 
tions of the holy fathers, and contrary to the well-known 
decree of the council of Trent, labours with all its might, 
and by every means, to translate, or rather to pervert, 
the Holy Scriptures into the vulgar language of every 
nation; from which proceeding it is greatly to be feared 
that, by a perverse interpretation, the gospel of Christ 
may be turned into a human gospel; or, w T hat is worse, 
the gospel of the devil. . To avert this plague, our prede¬ 
cessors published many ordinances, and proofs collected 
from the Holy Scriptures and tradition, to show how 
noxious this most wicked novelty is to faith and morals. 

“We exhort you, therefore, by all means to turn away 
your flocks from these poisonous pastures, being per¬ 
suaded that if the Scriptures be everywhere indiscrimi¬ 
nately published, more evil than advantage will arise on 
account of the rashness of men,” etc. 

On such documents, the Bible Society “ refrain from 
making any comment. They will rather indulge in silent 
grief, that the simple object of the Society should be so 
misunderstood and misrepresented, and that there should 
be found men who, from whatever motives, think it right 


428 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


to interpose between God's own word and the creatures to 
whom it is given." 

During 1839, Mr. Tiddy employed seven colporteurs, 
who frequently visited with good effect the same places 
two or three times; and it is inspiring to read his com¬ 
munications given in the Monthly Extracts. We have cer¬ 
tainly much to rejoice over, when we think that there are 
upwards of 50,000 copies of the sacred Scriptures abroad 
in this land. They must bear fruit; “ and the time will 
come, when these 50,000 talents will bring in other 
50,000 talents, and for Bibles we shall have souls.” 

Mr. Tiddy mentions, that a celebrated Jesuit preacher 
insisted very much on “ our having stolen the Bible from 
the Roman-Catholic Church; that we have no claim to 
it, that we have lost all right to it; and that Luther stole 
it out of the convent.” “ I was sorry I could not tell him 
that we wished to follow or even out-do Zaccheus, the 
chief among the publicans, who offered to restore fourfold 
what he had taken, and that we wished to restore the 
Bible to them a hundred-thousandfold.” 

In the year 1844, Mr. Joseph John Gurney, a devoted 
member of the Bible Society, and one of the Society of 
Friends, who is now no more, had been travelling in 
France, Germany, Prussia, and Belgium; and, observing 
the state of men’s minds with regard to the Bible, he 
thought they might be divided into three great classes: 
first, a powerful, insidious, and learned class, endeavour¬ 
ing with all their might to destroy the foundations of 
Christianity, many of them professors of universities, 
turning all the miracles of the New Testament into mere 
natural circumstances, speaking even of the Divinity of 
Christ as a sort of ornament, and poisoning the minds of 
tens of thousands of ingenuous youth cy their dangerous 
suggestions, “ taking away from the things that are writ¬ 
ten in the Book”; a second class he beheld, yet larger 
and more powerful, but distinguished by ignorance rather 
than learning, adding gross and childish superstitions, 


PROTESTANTISM ON THE CONTINENT. 


429 


such ceremonies as crowning the statues of the Virgin 
Mary, and other gilded rubbish, “ to the things that were 
written in the Book,” and desirous to abridge the religious 
liberty of a third class, whom he found a little party, a 
small but increasing proportion, including all classes, from 
some of the royal families down to the peasantry, showing 
themselves on the side of simple Christian truth, adopting 
the Book of revelation as their guide, and using all their 
influence widely to distribute it. Mr. Gurney avowed his 
conviction that this third party is growing stronger and 
stronger on the continent, and that the circulation of De 
Sacy’s version is daily increasing it. He bears testimony 
to Monsieur de P.’s unwearied zeal, in having distributed 
140,000 copies during the previous year. He says, “ There 
is a spiritual life arising in France at this time, which all 
the efforts of all the popes and cardinals in Christendom 
will-not be able to put down. In Belgium, the agent of 
the Bible Society is quietly distributing a thousand copies 
of the Scriptures every month. It is all in preparation 
for the vast struggle coming on between the powers of 
light and darkness; and the Scriptures,” continues Mr. 
Gurney, “ are being read , as well as distributed, and many 
are determined to abide by them, come what may!” 

Ten years have passed since then, and the same process 
has been going on between the same parties. Mr. Tiddy 
has been at work for eighteen years in Belgium; and he 
still says of the Bibles and Testaments, circulated by his 
colporteurs there (now nearly 200,000 volumes), “ What 
are these amongst so many?” 

In Cologne also, and the Rhenish provinces, he has, 
since the year 1847, circulated 273,503 copies, and he 
still believes that “ for these Bibles we shall have souls.” 




430 


CHAPTER X. 

THE OLD FOUNTAIN RESTORED IN ASSYRIA. — THE NESTORIAN 

CHURCH.- AMERICAN MISSIONS. — MR. LAYARD’s TESTIMONY.— 

THE ARMENIAN, THE COPTIC, THE ABYSSINIAN, AND THE WAL- 
DENSIAN CHURCHES.—TIP .TEWS.—JERUSALEM.-NAZARETH. 

Our fourth division is again the work of the Bible 
Society, as reviewed (very briefly) from this Jubilee 
Year among the Jews and ancient Christian Churches. 
There is certainly no department of its labours so worthy 
of being singled out and noticed. 

Mr. Layard, in his very interesting researches among 
the rock-sculptures at Bavian,* discovered remains and 
foundations in well-hewn stone buried under the mud of 
the river Gomel. He also on removing the earth found 
a series of basins cut in the rock, and descending in steps 
to the stream. The water had been originally led from 
one to the other through conduits, which of course were 
choked up; but he and his Arabs cleared them, and by 
pouring water into the upper basin restored the fountain 
as it had been in the time of the Assyrians. This is just 
what the Bible Society is doing with the “ water of life.” 
It has cleared the old conduits, and the refreshing stream 
through its means is once more fertilising the ancient 
churches. 

We have noticed the return of the light of truth to 
our long-unhappy Ireland, and by the very means that 
Mr. Charles of Bala recommended,—the Scriptures in 
her native tongue,—“ once the tongue of literature and 
science.” 

* See “Discoveries at Nineveh and Babylon,” p. 215 . 


THE NESTORIAN CHURCH. 


431 

The revisitation of the ancient missions of the Nesto- 
rians in China, has also been treated of under the head of 
“ Heathen Countries.” We must now look upon— 

THE NESTORIAN CHURCH 

in its native seats, by the help of some interesting de¬ 
tails from American missionaries, who have laboured 
among them since the year 1834, and also through the 
means of some information from Mr. Layaid. The Rev. 
D. Stoddard says: 

“ In the north of Persia, at the base of lofty mountains 
whose snows glitter in the sun, is a plain of great extent 
and uncommon beauty. This is the province of Oroo- 
miah, the home of the Nestorian Christians. Let the 
reader stand with me on the flat-terraced roof of our 
mission-house on mount Seir. We are 1000 feet above 
the plain, which lies stretched before us in all its beauty, 
forty miles in length, girt about with rugged mountains, 
dotted with hundreds of villages, verdant with foliage, 
and rejoicing in its thousand fields of golden grain. Be¬ 
yond the plain is the lake of Oroomiah, studded with 
islands. Mounds of ashes, with a scanty soil on them, 
conspicuous in different parts of the plain, have been 
supposed to be the places where the sacred fire was ever 
kept burning, and where the Parsee priests bowed in 
adoration to the rising sun. 

“ The Nestorians are a people interesting from their 
language,—the Syriac,—closely akin to the Hebrew, and 
spoken many centuries before the birth of Christ,—a 
language nearly identical with what was commonly used 
in Palestine in the days of our Saviour, and the medium 
through which he conversed with his disciples, and in¬ 
structed the people; and it was in this same language, 
that, in his dying agony, he cried with a loud voice, say¬ 
ing, ‘ Eloi! Eloi! lama sabachthani ? ’ ‘ My God! my 

God! why hast thou forsaken me ? ’ 


432 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


“ The power of Mahomet hunted down the Nestorians 
like defenceless sheep, in the midst of their missionary 
enterprises. Presented with the dreadful alternative of 
‘ the Koran or the sword,’ they melted away at last like 
the snows of spring; and for centuries they have been 
sunk in ignorance and superstition. The modern remnant 
of this ancient and venerable church consists of about 
100,000 souls, nearly half of them residing in the plains 
of Oroomiah, and the rest scattered over the wild and 
rugged ranges of the Kurdish Mountains,—the districts 
of Tekhoma and Tiyari. 

“ They are a good-looking people, not having the 
peculiar physiognomy of the Jews, from whom, however, 
some consider them descended,—inquisitive, and unwea¬ 
ried in acquiring knowledge. ‘ We thank you,’ * We 
thank you,’ is uttered by many voices, after any religious 
teaching. In the midst of the deep corruption of their 
church, they have been kept far nearer the Bible standard 
than the Roman-Catholic, Greek, or Armenian Churches. 
I never met with a Nestorian who denied the supreme 
authority of God’s word. Image and picture worship 
they hold in abhorrence, also auricular confession and 
priestly absolution. They have no mass or worship of 
the host. They do not refuse the cup to any communi¬ 
cant. They reject the doctrines of baptismal regeneration, 
of penance, and of purgatory, as unscriptural and wrong; 
and they are extremely liberal in their feelings towards 
all those with whom they are ‘ one in Christ Jesus.’ They 
have always welcomed the American Brethren, and 
granted their churches to us for the preaching of the 
gospel. Mr. S., one of our number, was ordained by us, 
in an old Nestorian church. Their own organisation is 
episcopal; yet bishops, priests, and deacons, all stood by, 
and witnessed this ceremony with evident gratification. It 
must be added, that, during our long residence here, we 
have laboured with the sole object of spreading Bible- 
truth, and bringing the people back to a humble, holy 


TRANSLATIONS FOR THE NESTORIANS. 433 


life, and have studiously avoided any mere sectarian 
efforts. 

“ Dr. Perkins, the pioneer of our mission* found this 
ancient church prostrate in the dust. The people were 
grossly ignorant. They had no schools, and not half-a- 
dozen readers in a whole village. Ail their hooks were 
in manuscript, and of course scarce, and sold at a high 
price. Stealing was prevalent,—lying inwrought into 
all their habits. They used to say, ‘We all he, here. 
Do you think our business would prosper aiid wb not lie?’ 
Wine circulated like water; and, with many features of 
orthodoxy, religion was a thing of form and outside show. 
Now there are seventy village-schools, and two semi¬ 
naries for training up young men and women to go forth 
and repair the wastes of many generations. The sacred 
fire is kindled once more upon their venerable altars. 
The Holy Scriptures are now happily completed in both 
the ancient and modern language of the Nestorians. The 
contents of their own rare, ancient, Syriac manuscripts 
have been returned to them in a printed form. Their 
own clergy have aided us in the translation of separate 
portions; and I shall never forget their emotion when we 
had first translated the Lord’s Prayer. The Nestorian 
ecclesiastics who were with me, were interested and de¬ 
lighted above measure at the first sight of their language 
in a written form. They would read a line, and then 
laugh audibly with satisfaction. We copied many por¬ 
tions, on cards, of the British and Foreign Bible Society’s 
editions of the Scriptures in the ancient language, till die 
arrival of our press in 1840. 

“This was an event of great interest and joy. As 1 
carried the proof-sheet of our first small book, composed 
of portions of the Scriptures, into my study for correction, 
and laid it upon the table before my translators, they were 
struck with mute astonishment and rapture to see their 
language in print; and as soon as their recovery from 
surprise allowed them utterance, ‘ It is time to give glory 


434 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


to God! ’ was their mutual exclamation, ‘ now .that we 
behold the commencement of printing books for our 
people.’ ” 

The entire Old Testament was published in 1842, in 
ancient and modem Syriac, in parallel columns, by the 
American Bible Society. It forms a large quarto volume 
of more than 1000 pages. 

Dr. Perkins continues: “ The influence of the Holy 
Scriotures on the pupils in our schools and training col¬ 
leges, and on the scores and hundreds of adult Nestorians 
who are learning to read in our Sabbath-schools, and at 
their humble homes, and through all these readers on the 
mass of the people, is incalculable. 

“ Here, also, efforts have been made, by papal emissa¬ 
ries, to pervert the people ; and they offer the most serious 
obstacles we have to encounter in our missionary labours. 
They denounce the Holy Scriptures as ‘ corrupt English 
books ,’ and forbid their converts to read them.” 

French papists at Mosul, and at Elkoosh (the venerable 
home of the prophet Nahum), have made many converts 
among the simple people, who but too readily yield to 
their influence. 

In Mr. Layard’s account of recent tour, we have a 
vivid sketch of the Nestorian tribes, who are entrenched 
among the mountains of Assyria. 

Soon after they had been put in possession of 2000 
copies of the four Gospels, by the British and Foreign 
Bible Society, in 1830, the Divine seed sprang up, and 
bore fruit to the glory of God. The American mission¬ 
aries say c ; these tribes : “ Many of the people appear 
like persons awakened from a deep sleep, and are in¬ 
quiring, ‘ How is it that we have been kept so long in 
ignorance and self-delusion?’ To which inquiry their 
priests reply, ‘ We ourselves have till now been dead in 
trespasses and sins, and our sin is greater than yours for 
having hidden the light from you so long.’ ” 



THE NESTORIAN CHURCH. 


43 f, 

We owe to Mr. Layard many details of this early 
church, interesting as connected with what is said of 
them in the Reports of the Bible Society. He has made 
two visits to their villages in the Tiyari mountains, while 
taking refuge from the heats of the summer during his 
labours at Nimroud. He often found the people gone up 
to their zomas or summer pastures. These are little 
rocky nooks, high on the mountains, where they build 
temporary huts of loose stones with black goat-hair can¬ 
vas, stretched over them, pitched at the foot of snowy 
precipices,—yet, strange to say, on a carpet of Alpine 
flowers. He followed them to their zomas. Though 
poor and needy, they are hospitable, and brought their 
best to the traveller. He says there is an earnest reli¬ 
gious feeling peculiar to them as a people. 

There are now very few learned priests left among 
them ; yet at the time of the Arab invasion they were 
the chief depositaries of the learning of the East. They 
translated the works of Greek philosophers into their own 
language, and re-translated them into Arabic. Therf 
exist among them the remains of very old churches, 
which have all small entrances, in order that their ty¬ 
rants, the Turks, may not lodge horses and beasts of 
burden within their doors. Mr. Layard sometimes found 
a book of prayer, or the Scriptures in manuscript, lying 
on the rude altar; but frequently the greatest part of the 
leaves would be wanting, and those which remained were 
torn into shreds, or disfigured by damp and mould; for 
they were compelled to hide in the mountains the manu¬ 
scripts of the churches, or to bury them in some obscure 
place, at the time of the massacre—the dreadful massacre 
of these poor people—which took place in 1843, when 
Beder Kan Bey, with his cruel Kurds, invaded the 
Tiyari districts, and murdered in cold blood nearly 10,000 
of their inhabitants, carrying away their women and 
children as slaves. These captives were afterwards re¬ 
leased through the influence of the British embassy in 


436 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Turkey. Mr. Layard actually came in contact, near 
Lizan, with ocular evidences of this terrible slaughter. 
Skulls, heaps of blanched bones, and even skeletons of all 
ages, still hung to the dwarf shrubs growing on the pre¬ 
cipitous steeps down which they had been hurled. Some 
of these Nestorians were employed as diggers in the 
mounds at Nineveh; and Mr. L. relates that several of 
the priests or deacons were among the workmen, who, on 
the Sabbath, repeated prayers, or led a hymn or chant. 

Ho adds: “I often watched these poor creatures, as 
they reverently knelt, their heads uncovered, under the 
great bulls, celebrating the praises of Him whose temples 
the worshippers of those frowning idols had destroyed, and 
whose power they had mocked. It was the triumph of 
truth over paganism. Never had that triumph been more 
forcibly illustrated than by those who now bowed down 
in the crumbling halls of the Assyrian kings.” 

Mr. Layard visited, in the district of Jelu, the church 
which is said to be the oldest in the Nestorian mountains, 
“ the only one that had escaped the ravages of the Kurds, 
and still contains the ancient furniture and ornaments. 
The church was so thickly hung with relics of the most 
singular and motley description, that the ceiling was com¬ 
pletely concealed by them. Amongst the objects which 
first attracted my attention were numerous China bowls, 
and jars of elegant form and richly-coloured, but black 
with the dust of ages. They were suspended, like the 
other relics, from the roof. I was assured that they had 
been there from time out of mind, and had been brought 
from the distant empire of Cathay, by those early mission¬ 
aries of the Chaldean Church, who bore the tidings of the 
gospel to the shores of the Yellow Sea. If such were 
really the case, some of them might date so fa.r back as 
the sixth or seventh centuries, when the Nestorian Church 
flourished in China, and its missions were spread over the 
whole of Central Asia.” 

How exceedingly interesting is this independent testi- 


THE ARMENIAN CHURCH. 


43 1 


rnony of Mt. Layard, as viewed in connection with the 
news recently received from China! He appears to have 
given excellent counsel to Mar Shamoun, the unfortunate 
and troubled patriarch of the church : “1 could not dis¬ 
guise from him, that, in education and the free fircula- 
tion of the Scriptures, there could alone be found any 
hope for his people.” And thus among the Tiyari 
mountains exists the remnant of the Syro-Chaldaic or 
Nestorian Church, which once had the “ living water,” 
in its ancient translation of the Scriptures, and dispensed 
it widely to the heathen. But in course of time these 
copies became exceedingly rare. Mr. Wolff, the mis¬ 
sionary, in his travels in Persia, purchased some of them, 
which safely reached England, though they were twice 
in peril by shipwreck. They came into the possession of 
the Bible Society, who discovered this translation to be 
the same as the Syriac (but written in Chaldee cha¬ 
racter), and, by means of its learned editor, T. P. Platt, 
Esq., supplied from the Syriac its missing portions. The 
sacred Books were sent back in a printed form, and the 
Society might have said with Mr. Layard, “ The con¬ 
duits were choked up, but we cleared them, and restored 
the fountain pure as it had flowed in the times of the 
early Nestorians.” 

THE ARMENIAN CHURCH. 

The Armenians, as we have seen, are a far-scattered 
people—the travelling merchants of the world. Their 
number has been estimated at from two to three millions : 
and the first attempt to give them the Scriptures in their 
vulgar tongue was made by the British and Foreign Bible 
Society. In 1837, a fount of Armenian type w T as for¬ 
warded to the American missionaries at Smyrna, and a 
revised edition of the New Testament was carried care¬ 
fully and slowly through the press. In 1842, 5000 copies 
were issued, and they came immediately into great de- 


438 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


mand ; indeed, the version of Scripture in this language 
has received the manifest blessing of God in a degree 
almost unprecedented. The following is the account 
given by missionaries on the spot: “ There are great en¬ 
couragements to aid the Bible circulation in Turkey. 
There is probably net a city in that country to which the 
Scriptures in modern languages have not been carried; 
and we might mention twenty towns where Armenians 
are found who daily search them, for the purpose of 
guiding their lives according to their supreme teachings. 
In some of these places, this holy volume, owing to the 
fact of its being in the modern language, is looked upon as 
afresh message from heaven; and in such towns especial 
assemblies are held on the Sabbath fc** studying the 
Scriptures, and this occurs also in towns where no foreign 
missionary has ever been. It is the work of the Bible 
alone. Among the Armenians, the Bible in the ancient 
language has always been a prominent and central object 
on the altar in the church, and is daily offered to the 
people, after prayers, to be kissed. This may have 
tended, perhaps, to their reverence for its teachings in 
the tongue which they understand. 

“ The reading of the Scriptures amongst the Armenians 
has cured many of their scepticism. They have become 
convinced, that, whatever failures they might see in pro¬ 
fessors of Christianity around them, here, in the Book, is 
pure, living truth ! One individual, a banker among the 
Armenians, said, ‘ Our nation owes to those who have 
been the means of acquainting as with the word of God 
in an intelligible language, a vast debt of gratitude: they 
have saved not only me but many others from infidelity ; 
for we have found that Christianity has deeper founda¬ 
tions than we had supposed, and that there is in the word 
of God something u^on which to anchor our faith.’ 

“ A young man came to purchase some copies of the 
Scriptures in Armenian, and said, 4 1 have received a 
letter from my native city, requesting me to send them 


ARMENIAN CHRISTIANS IN TURKEY. 439 

some money for building a church ; but as I am more 
desirous to build up a church of living stones than any 
other, I shall send home my contribution in the form of 
the printed word of God.’ ” 

With the revival of truth, came also suffering to this 
church. In the former part of the year 1846, persecu¬ 
tion of the “ gospel-readers,” as they were called, was 
very common in Turkey, Three men in a village near 
Nicomedia were scourged, one of them almost to death, 
in the presence of the whole village. Nine men of Ada 
Bazar were imprisoned for the same crime. At Trebi- 
zond, the gospel-readers were hunted like wild beasts in 
the city and on the mountains. One went into exile, 
by order of the pasha ; one was brought to Constantinople, 
and chained in a dungeon by his neck and feet, for a 
fortnight, till he was released through the interposition 
of the British ambassador, who is always ready for every 
office of humanity. 

In 1847, Mr. Barker writes : “ Those Armenians who 
read the Bible are now called Protestants, and have been 
sadly persecuted, at Erzeroom, by the Armenian bishop. 
He applied to the sultan, and the unexpected result has 
happily been a special order to see that none were 
molested on account of religious opinions. This has so 
encouraged the Protestant Armenians in Turkey, who 
have now become numerous, that, in a village near the 
town of Nicomedia, a congregation of Protestant Arme¬ 
nians has sprung up, adopting the Scriptures alone as 
their rule of faith. No missionary has ever been among 
them but the Missionary of missionaries—the Bible. 
Sometimes they have been attacked with stones, which 
they calmly took up, and went and deposited at the 
governor’s feet, demanding protection and redress.” 

Similar accounts are given from Aleppo, of a church 
of 200 evangelical Christians, formerly Armenians, and 
solemnly excommunicated by the Armenian patriarch, 
but to no purpose, for more are daily added to their 


440 


TIIE BOOK AND ITS STOKY. 


numbers. No missionary has ever been amongst these. 
It is a reformation arising from the reading of the Scrip¬ 
tures alone. “ Many years ago,” says Mr. Barker, “ I 
forwarded a good many Armenian Testaments in this 
direction, and as far as Arab-keer. They were read with 
avidity in these wild districts, where the people are now 
earnestly requesting a missionary.” 

In 1848, the Reports are equally interesting, and a 
reprint of the Armenian Testament with marginal re¬ 
ferences was requested : thirty, forty, and fifty people 
were assembling together every evening for religious in¬ 
struction,—a most extraordinary change in the strong¬ 
holds of Mahomedanism. In 1850, there was an earnest 
request for a pocket-edition of the same precious Book, 
from those who wished to have the word of God con¬ 
stantly about them, that they might be able in conversa¬ 
tion with others to appeal at once “ to the law and to 
the testimony.” 

In 1851, the promotion of many fresh Protestant 
churches was announced at Aintab, Diarbekir, Mosul, 
Cesarea, etc. In all these places, colporteurs employed 
by the missionaries circulated the word of God. One of 
these colporteurs says that he stopped one Saturday 
night, a mile distant from the village of Hesemek, in a 
meadow on a river’s bank. Before noon, on Sunday, it 
was noised that he was there; and forty men came out to 
see him, and a large party of them kept him till midnight 
reading and explaining to them the word of God in their 
modern language. They seemed to receive the word 
gladly; and, like hungry souls, they made him give up 
all the Books he had, and promise to bring them a further 
supply. 

The introduction of the Scriptures in all directions in 
Turkey,—in Constantinople, Smyrna, Rodosto, Nicome- 
dia, Adrianople, Trebizond, Erzeroom, etc.,—has been 
greatly assisted by the firman of his imperial majesty the 
sultan, confirming and enlarging the protection given to 


NICOMEDIA AND ADA BAZAR. 


441 


all his Protestant subjects, and securing to them the full 
and free exercise of their religion. 

The fact is, that every year’s Report of the increasing 
influence of the word of God, again restored to this 
ancient church, is more gratifying than the preceding. 
In 1852, the Rev. Isaac Lowndes, the Society’s agent for 
Malta and Greece, writes: “I accompanied Dr. Dwight, 
one of the American missionaries, to Nicomedia, where 
we spent the Sabbath, and also to Ada Bazar. 

“ Nicomedia is situated on the coast of the Sea of 
Marmora, fifty miles east of Constantinople. It was 
formerly the capital of Bithynia, and the residence of 
the Emperor Constantine and some of his successors, 
during a part of the year. Here Pliny resided, and from 
hence wrote to Trajan for advice as to the best measures 
for preventing the further spread of Christianity. Here 
began the last and worst of the pagan persecutions by 
the cruel edict of Dioclesian. The number of the inhabi¬ 
tants in the town is now declared to be about 35,000. 

“I visited some remains of antiquity, supposed to be 
the ruins of an ancient Christian church, and some ex¬ 
cavations recently made prove it at least to have been 
the site of a large edifice, perhaps that into which first 
entered the prefect of the praetorian band,—to burn, to 
overthrow, and to destroy.* In this very place , where the 
persecution commenced by which Dioclesian said he had 
* blotted out Christianity from the earth,’ is now a church 
of i living stones’ (150 persons making a creditable pro¬ 
fession of religion), and but one of many similar churches 
to be continually multiplied, till the ‘ knowledge of the 
Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.’ 

“ Ada Bazar is fifty miles still farther east. The two 
small Christian communities here and at Nicomedia, 
manifest much of a missionary spirit, and already have 
sent out colporteurs partly at their own expense, besides 


* See page 92 


442 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


contributing to the support of their own pastors. They 
are a poor people, but their deep poverty thus abounds 
in liberality. 

“ There are twenty-one Armenian Protestant churches 
in Asia. The one at Aintab has a congregation of 800 
persons, and they worship in an enormous tent. There 
are more than 100 villages and cities, where it is evident 
that the gospel has begun to take effect.” 

The Rev. Mr. Benjamin, American missionary at Con¬ 
stantinople, writes, on the 22nd of February, 1853, to the 
committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society, “as 
a member of a mission which is indebted to that Society 
and for valuable editions of the Divine word, which with¬ 
out it would never have seen the light:” “We may truly 
say, it has been a right arm to our mission. May it go 
forward till its Jubilee shall enlist the sympathy and 
praise of every living soul upon the earth! 

“ Sometimes the wonder-working providence of God 
conveys the copies furnished by the Society to places 
hitherto unapproached by the missionary and even by the 
colporteur. Certain wandering Kurds,* who roam over 
the north of Syria, had possessed themselves of a quantity 
of Armenian Scriptures, and finding them of no use to 
themselves, distributed them among the Armenian popu¬ 
lation in the neighbourhood of their own encampment, by 
whom they were joyfully received. 

“We think you may safely assure the friends of the 
Bible in Great Britain, that, since the period when the 
reign of apostasy first extended over this fair land, no 
year has witnessed so much actual Christian progress 
effected as in the last year One fact of general notoriety 
and of great importance is, that the circulation of the 
Lord of God among the Armenians has already put an 

* The Kurds are the descendants of the ancient Parthians. The 
Yezidis, who fear to utter the name of Satan, are a tribe of Kurds. 
The Kurds in general profess Mahomedanism, but a great number 
of them have joined the Nestorian Christians. 


THE AMERICAN MISSIONARIES. 


443 


effectual stop to the influence of the Romanists among the 
people.” 

And now that Britain is brought into strange alliance 
with Mahomedanism, and because she keeps faith in 
treaties, is making war to defend the oppressed, now is 
the time that British Christians should be roused to 
strengthen the hands and encourage the hearts of those 
good soldiers of Jesus Christ, who are “valiant for the 
truth” in Turkey. A most interesting union of those who 
love the Lord Jesus, somewhat similar to that formed in 
the Bible Society, has recently been formed to encourage 
missions in Turkey, between members of our separate 
existing societies, the Church Missionary, the London 
Missionary, the Wesleyan, and the Baptist Missionary 
Societies, not so much to extend their own individual 
work, as to help the American missionaries, to whom the 
revivals in these corrupt Eastern churches have been 
mainly owing, to prosecute theirs. 

The American missionaries have all the necessary ap¬ 
paratus at work, of native pastors, evangelists, colpor¬ 
teurs, and schools, which only need to be aided by in¬ 
creased funds. Students are preparing for this mission 
at Andover and New York, and ten pounds per annum 
would support a student at the Bebek mission seminary, 
who would find a wide and almost untrodden field of 
labour in the khans or lodging-places at Constantinople, 
some of which have 1000 occupants in the season,— 
merchants always migrating into the interior.* 

The wonderful revivals, so far as missionaries are con¬ 
cerned, have chiefly been accomplished by thirteen mis¬ 
sionaries, six native preachers, and thirty native helpers. 
There are stations imploring fifty more foreign teachers, 
and one hundred native helpers. The Holy Spirit, 
following the circulation of the word, is moving again 

* See “ Openings for the Gospel in Turkey,” by Cuthbert 
Young. 


444 


TIIE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


over the regions cultivated by the apostles themselves, 
and mentioned in the book of their Acts. 

We had delightful tidings from Turkey, dated the 13th 
of «June, 1853, a day when the first public meeting was 
held in Constantinople to commemorate the labours of 
evangelical Christendom for the conversion of the earth. 

“ This meeting,” says Mr. Dwight, “ was a Jubilee 
meeting of the British and Foreign Bible Society, the ho¬ 
noured parent of all other Bible Societies. It was held 
in the large saloon of the Hotel d’Angleterre, and there 
must have been present at least 200 persons. The present 
British ambassador, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, took the 
chair, and addressed the residents of the place, and also a 
few Christian travellers from England and America who 
happened to be present. He alluded to the time of the 
institution of the Parent Society; that it was when Napo¬ 
leon was near the zenith of his day, and England was at 
war with almost every nation of Europe, that the friends 
of the Bible first conceived the thought of sending that 
one Book throughout all the world. He said he was re¬ 
minded of the ancient heathen fable of a golden chain 
suspending the earth from the throne of Jupiter. This 
fable had become realized under the Christian system, 
for the Bible was the golden chain that bound us to the 
throne of God. His lordship warmly commended the 
zeal and discretion which had characterised the efforts of 
the American, German, and English missionaries, who 
had all acted in beautiful harmony in carrying forward 
this work.” 

An association was then formed in connection with the 
British and Foreign Bible Society, to assist in the work 
of distributing the word of God in Turkey 

Who shall tell the effect of this new movement on the 
Armenians, in all the countries in which they are scat¬ 
tered, and on the Turks out of Europe, as well as on 
Mahomedans who are not Turks? The Asiatic peninsula 
is the chief stronghold of Islam, and from this centre may 


THE COPTIC CHURCH. 


445 


yet radiate, towards Turkey in Asia, the light of a purer 
faith. 

You may not have thought of the fact, that it is ge¬ 
nerally a manuscript Koran which contests with a printed 
Bible. Societies have never been formed for printing 
and distributing the Koran of Mahomet, or the Vedas 
and Shastras of the Hindus. The Mahomedan copies the 
Koran for himself, and frequently commits it to memory, 
as the Brahmins of India do their sacred books. The 
false lights shall die out; they are not fitted for the human 
race; but the light of eternal truth must penetrate all 
the dark places of the earth, and be rekindled in lan¬ 
guage after language, till He come whose right it is to 
reign, and till all “ the kingdoms of the world shall be¬ 
come the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.” 

THE COPTIC CHURCH. 

The only language known to have derived its origin 
from the Ancient Egyptian is the Coptic, the second 
language in which the inscription on the Kosetta stone 
is written. 

This origin has invested the Coptic with peculiar in¬ 
terest in the eyes of the learned. It is called “ a venerable 
language,” and in it the liturgy of the Coptic Church 
is still publicly read; but it is not understood by the 
majority of the Copts, who mostly speak Arabic. 

The Copts themselves scarcely form a fourteenth part 
of the motley population dwelling on the soil of their an¬ 
cestors. Sometimes they are persecuted, sometimes they 
turn MahOmedans, and they are not now supposed to 
be in numbe T more than 150,000. They have a pa¬ 
triarch or supreme head, who is also the head of the 
Abyssinian Church. In 1829, an edition of 2000 of the 
Coptic Gospels, printed in parallel columns with the 
Arabic version, was published by the British and Foreign 
Bible Society. The text had been prepared by the 


446 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Coptic patriarch, at the instance of Mr. Jowett. “No 
complete edition of the Coptic Old Testament has yet 
been published, for several of the books are missing. It 
is however probable, that they are not actually lost, and 
that they may yet be found in some of the cloisters of 
Egypt.” 

In 1832, the Rev. Mr. Lieder, a missionary connected 
with the Church Missionary Society, furnished the fol¬ 
lowing details respecting Egypt:— 

“ During our six years’ stay in Egypt, all parts of it 
have several times been visited by us, and we have circu¬ 
lated the Holy Scriptures in Arabic, Turkish, Greek, Ar¬ 
menian, Italian, French, German, Spanish, Hebrew, and 
Coptic. We have endeavoured also to introduce the 
word of God, or part of it, into the schools of this na¬ 
tion, where hundreds of children now begin to read the 
word of life. 

“ Though we have not yet met with real conversions 
among the natives, we know that the Holy Scriptures are 
read in many houses, and that some think more seriously 
about the salvation of their souls, and are anxious to lay 
aside those sinful customs which are very general in Egypt, 
as, for instance, swearing lying, and hypocrisy, so strongly 
condemned by holy writ. 

“ There are still great numbers in Egypt who are not 
provided with the Divine word. Some of them cannot 
read it on account of the smallness of the type, others are 
ignorant of the value of this great treasure, and many 
cannot obtain it for want of money. In regard to the 
small type m whicn the Arabic Scriptures have hitherto 
been printed, I remark, that many of the people are un¬ 
able to read them, partly from an incapacity to distin¬ 
guish the letters from each other, and partly from a fear 
of losing their present impaired sight. Europeans cannot 
imagine how much the Egyptians suffer from weak eyes, 
or how many have lost their sight entirely from oph¬ 
thalmia. It would therefore be a most necessary and 


CAIRO.—ABYSSINIA. 


447 

noble work, were the British and Foreign Bible Society 
to furnish the Egyptians, and the Arabs in general, with 
the Holy Scriptures printed in large types.” 

i he committee complied with this suggestion, and 
ordered 5000 Arabic Testaments and Psalms in larger 
type, forthwith. An edition of 2014 copies of the Coptic 
Psalter, printed in parallel columns with the Arabic 
version, has likewise been issued by the Bible Society. 

The Rev. W. Kruse, a missionary in Egypt, writes 
from Cairo : “ The Coptic patriarch becomes more and 
more friendly towards us, and often sends monks to us to 
receive the Holy Scriptures. One of these, whose serene, 
sincere look, confirmed the truth of the words he uttered 
when receiving the Bible, said, ‘ A greater treasure than 
this I do not look for on earth; for whoever lives accord¬ 
ing to its contents, is safe and happy for ever.’ These 
monks are always being changed in the convent of the 
patriarchs. They come from all the convents in Egypt 
alternately, at various appointed times, to Cairo, stay for 
some time here, and then return to their convents, while 
others take their places.” Thus the Scriptures will pene¬ 
trate into all parts of Egypt. The issues for this country, 
since 1820, have reached 6000 copies. More, many more 
copies, and “ a man like Luther,” as one amon^ them¬ 
selves has said, are needed to reform this church 

ABYSSINIA. 

The Amharic Testament having been carried through 
the press in 1829, the entire Bible was completed from 
M. Asselin’s translation in 1842. The copies printed have 
been 7000, besides more than 4000 portions of Scripture 
in Ethiopic. There is little known at present of the re¬ 
sults of distribution, either in the Abyssinian or Coptic 
Churches; but the following details are interesting, fur¬ 
nished by the missionaries before the whole Scriptures 
reached them. They found it very difficult to do any- 


448 


THE BOOK AKD ITS STORY. 


thing in Abyssinia, before they had the whole Bible; for 
the reading-people are a thoughtful race, “ very apt to 
suppose that those who speak to them about religion are 
deceivers ; but when they can themselves see a passage in 
the Scriptures contrary to their opinions, they will imme¬ 
diately give them up.” The missionaries say : “ We have 
had one Abyssinian with us for nine months, and he has 
read so much in the Amharic Gospels, that he knows all 
four almost by heart. Though he is very humble in every 
respect, he does not give up a single error till we have 
proved to him by the Gospels that it is an error. He 
desires much to have the Epistles of Paul, of which we 
are always speaking.” The committee expressed a hope 
that this intelligent student would prove a fair specimen 
of his countrymen. 


THE WAEDENSES. 

By a census made, about 1820, of the inhabitants of 
the Vaudois valleys, it was found that the Protestants 
were nearly 17,000 in number, and the Catholics 4000. 

Two or three individuals, during this century, have 
been remarkable for the interest they have taken in the 
members of this ancient church, which, in its bitter suffer¬ 
ings has always found so much sympathy in the heart of 
England. 

Felix Neff, once a young officer of artillery, afterwards 
a Christian pastor, was led by Providence to that part of 
the French Alps where the Vaudois Church had been 
established. He triumphed over all obstacles, and, like 
another Oberlin, taught the inhabitants to irrigate their 
meadows, and to improve their lands ; but he more par¬ 
ticularly lent himself to the task of revivifying their 
souls. 

In his visits to the Vaudois valleys and to those of 
Piedmont, he was forcibly struck with their richness of 
vegetation as contrasted with the barrenness of the French 


THE WALDENSES. 


449 


valleys, and he was equally struck with their spiritual 
degeneracy. He began to form prayer-meetings among 
them, and thus was religious zeal revived in these inter¬ 
esting valleys. We have already seen their glad reception 
of help from the Bible Society.* 

In 1823, the Rev. Dr. Gilly journeyed to these valleys, 
and, when he returned, thousands were interested by his # 
published account of them, and among others, Major- 
general Beckwith, who is still their benefactor. The 
General, with other friends, has erected and endowed a 
hundred schools among the Yaudois; and in 1830, for¬ 
warded to the committee of the British and Foreign Bible 
Society a specimen page of a translation of two Gospels 
into the dialect which is now spoken by them. The 
translation was made by the Rev. Mr. Bert, pastor of La 
Tour. The Society undertook to publish 1000 copies in 
parallel columns, with Martin’s French version. In 1832, 
600 copies had been distributed, and another edition was 
called for of 2000 copies. A letter from Major-general 
Beckwith, in 1840, announces that the Gospels sent into 
Northern Italy are freely circulating among the Pro¬ 
testants. With the progress of education, however, the 
use of the modern French language is rapidly gaining 
ground among these people, because French is the me¬ 
dium of instruction in the schools. Yet there is amongst 
them a special school for the training of young men for 
the ministry, in which, since the year 1848, all the can¬ 
didates for the pastorship are instructed in Italian, with a 
view to the restoration in the valleys of their own national 
tongue. 

In the Report for 1853, Major-general Beckwith is said 
to have made a remittance of 95/. 13s. 4 d. for Italian and 
Piedmontese Scriptures circulated by him amongst the 
Waldensian Churches; and, on his recommendation, an 
edition of 2500 copies of Genesis and Luke, in Italian, 


See page 312. 


so 


450 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


will be printed; and these will be placed at his disposal 
for the purpose of distribution. 

We have very interesting recent intelligence concerning 
the remarkable religious awakening in the north of Italy, 
and which is taking place through the missionary efforts 
of the descendants of the ancient Waldenses, and the 
circulation of the Scriptures. “ The burning lamp, sur¬ 
rounded with the seven stars,” the old symbol of the 
Waldensian Church, has begun to verify its ancient 
motto, “ Luxlucet in tenebris.” 


THE JEWS. 

But is there any part of the Society’s work, after all, 
so delightful, as restoring the pure and living waters to 
the nation for whose sake they first flowed ? On the 
brow of the Jew is written our past, and our future ; for, 
“ if through their fall, salvation is come unto the Gentiles, 
—if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the 
diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much 
more their fulness ! —for if the casting away of them be 
the reconciling of the -world, what shall the receiving of 
them he , but life from the dead ?” (Romans 11 . 12, 15.) 

And shall not the Gentile Church hasten the time of 
her own “ fulness,” as she earnestly prays with Judah for 
her captive sister Israel of old, “ Return, we beseech thee, 
0 God of hosts : look down from heaven, and behold, 
and visit this vine; and the vineyard which thy right 
hand hath planted, and the branch that thou madest 
strong for thyself”? (Psalm 80. 14, 15.) 

In various ways, during the last quarter of a century, 
a vast number of copies of the Scriptures, in Hebrew and 
other languages, have been circulated among the Jews of 
different countries, partly by means of societies interested 
in their welfare, and partly by purchase, of their own ac¬ 
cord. The Report of the Bible Societies witness to the 


THE JEWS. 


451 


desire of the Jews to possess the Bible, at Malta, at 
Damascus, at St. Petersburg, and other places. 

The Rev. Mr. Ewald, formerly missionary at Tunis, 
who appears to be himself a Jew, gives us, in the year 
1837, an interesting account of his labours amongst his 
brethren according to the flesh. He has shown, he says, 
to hundreds of thousands of them what Moses and the 
prophets have foretold of the Redeemer of the world. 
“ In the space of four years, the time that I have spent in 
the north of Africa, 5000 copies of the Scriptures have 
been put into circulation, at Algiers, at Tunis, at Tripoli, 
and in many other towns. Sometimes there was opposi¬ 
tion : the Mahomedan priests burned a Bible, the Roman- 
Catholic priests said it was not genuine, and some igno¬ 
rant Jewish Rabbins did the same ; but still the word of 
life is read by Mahomedans, Jews, and Roman Catholics. 

“ But some will say, ‘ What good have you done by 
giving the Bible to the Jews at a low price ? Of course 
they are glad to receive their own Scriptures as cheap as 
possible; but that does not bring them nearer to Chris¬ 
tianity.’ Such questions have been asked. Allow me 
to give an answer to them. The Jews in general are 
ignorant of the whole contents of the Bible. Hundreds 
do not read more than the five books of Moses, and some 
portions of the prophets. Hence it arises, that they are 
ignorant of the many prophecies respecting the Messiah ; 
and often, when I quote passages referring to His coming, 
sufferings, and death, they will tell me, 1 Those passages 
do not occur in our Bible : you have written them in fa¬ 
vour of your religion.’ And this is not the case in Africa 
only, for I have met with the same in Germany, and even 
in England, where Bibles are so easily to be had. 

“ Now, how can we preach the Saviour of the world 
to the Jews with effect r How can we prove the truths 
of Christianity out of their own Scriptures, if they are 
ignorant of them, if they have never read the evangelical 
prophecy of Isaiah, the plain predictions of David, and 


452 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


of the rest of the prophets ? By giving them their own 
Scriptures, we try by the blessing of God to make them 
Israelites, to draw them away from the hollow cisterns of 
rabbinism, and to bring them to the fountain of living 
water.” 

The same missionary says : “ The Jews now read the 
word of the living God without the comments of the 
rabbins, and often wish the good Society which sent them 
the Scriptures at so low a price, a thousand blessings 
from above. At Zwaghan, about fifty miles from Tunis, 
poverty and misery abound, and a shilling is of as much 
value as a pound in England. In such places especially, 
the benefits conferred by the Bible Society are fully ap¬ 
preciated.” 

From Tunis, also, in 1846, the Kev. N. Davis writes as 
follows: “About twenty years ago, a nmnber of copies 
of the Hebrew New Testament were sent hither, by your 
Society, and one of them came into the possession of Mr. 
Nigjar, an infidel Jew, who lent it to Mr. Bishmoth, also 
a Jew, with a view to unsettle his opinions likewise. 
Mr. B. perused it, but it had a different effect upon him. 
Instead of making him what is falsely called liberal- 
minded, he became seriously-minded, for he saw there 
was no other way left him but either to embrace the 
truths of the gospel, or continue without peace in this 
world, and without hope beyond the grave. 

“ After twenty days, Mr. Nigjar himself told me that 
Mr. Bishmoth returned with the Testament. He said he 
was surprised to find him in tears, and in a very agitated 
state of mind, and more so still when he exclaimed, ‘ Is 
this the history of Jesus who is so misrepresented by our 
rabbins ? I fully believe Him to have been the Messiah, 
and all predictions of a Messiah to be fulfilled in Him. 
Our nation is in darkness, and will be so till they believe 
in Him.’ ‘ He called on me often,’ said Mr. N., ‘ and 
brought me such wonderfid things from Moses and the 
prophets, as would greatly surprise you.’ Mr. Nigjar 


THE JEWS IN TARTARY. 


453 


himself has, through the instrumentality of this man, 
been brought to a more serious state of mind. Both visit 
me : one is in the eighty-third year of his age, and the 
other has passed seventy.” 

Mr. Melville, a gentleman who is mentioned in the 
Report for 1846 as indefatigable in his labours among the 
Tartars, travelling in an open cart from village to village 
in their country, with boxes of Scriptures for distribution, 
speaks of the Jews in the following encouraging manner: 
—“ The Jews in Tartary have been great purchasers of 
the Scriptures this year. There is a general movement 
onwards among the Jews at present, which we ought to 
follow up by as large a distribution of Testaments as 
possible. They are no longer burners of those holy Books. 
They are eagerly read, and by many diligently studied. 
May the Spirit of the Lord draw aside the veil, that the 
beams of the Sun of Righteousness may shine into their 
hearts, hitherto cold and icy towards the Redeemer of 
Israel ! Much requires to be done among the Jews in 
Chersosi. Many are in deep poverty, and cannot even pay 
the present low prices for Bibles. The almost general 
opinion at present respecting the Jews is, that the study 
of the prophets will bring them to embrace Christianity.” 

In 1849, Mr. Barker writes: “ Our work goes on 
steadily, and the demand for the Hebrew Scriptures con¬ 
tinues unabated, and, if anything, gains ground.” 

We have heard that there is, in this Jubilee Year of 
the Bible Society, a remarkable movement taking place 
among the Jews in every country in which they are 
scattered. The rabbinism which has enslaved them for 
so many ages is rapidly losing its influence. Multitudes 
are throwing aside the Mishna and the Talmud, and be¬ 
taking themselves again to the study of Moses and the 
prophets. Among the Jews in London, it is said, there 
is at this present time a great demand for copies of the 
Hebrew Old Testament. How far the steady and perse¬ 
vering distribution of the Scriptures among them may 


454 


THE BOOK AND ITS STOKY. 


have quietly tended to this result, we must leave it to 
a future day to reveal. The subject of their return to 
Palestine, and the nature of the promises on which this 
expectation is founded, are engaging their deepest atten¬ 
tion. In the examination of this matter they have been 
assisted by a rabbi from the continent, who has exhibited 
a manuscript, in which he has endeavoured to prove from 
Scripture, that the time has come when the Jews must 
make preparation for returning to their own country—the 
land of their fathers. The said manuscript has been pub¬ 
lished both in Hebrew and English, in the form of a small 
tract, and it is said to be very influential in furthering 
the movement proposed by the learned rabbi. 

In 1851, the English bishop at Jerusalem favoured the 
committee with some interesting communications. He 
says: “ I feel more and more, that, if it were not for the 
liberality of the Bible Society, I could scarcely do any¬ 
thing in Palestine. I trust that, though the returns of 
money are scanty, on account of the extreme poverty of 
most of those who desire to receive the word of life, yet 
the returns in a higher sense will reward those who have 
helped in sowing the incorruptible seed. 

“The work of God has considerably developed itself 
at Nazareth. Very soon after the first visit of one of my 
Bible-readers to Nazareth, several individuals of that place 
visited me, and begged that I would establish a school for 
children, as I had done at Nablous; but all I could do 
then, was to supply the people with Bibles, and direct 
them by correspondence.” 

There are at this time thirteen heads of families repre¬ 
senting sixty-one souls, who have signed a document by 
which they declare themselves Protestants, and fifty more 
are ready to do the same. They are very anxious to be 
recognised by the government as a Protestant community. 
This is in consequence of the simple reading of the Bible, 
—of the history of Jesus of Nazareth,—in the very place 



HOLLAND. 


4 55 


where the Lord abode. How delightful for the Bible 
Society to he able to say of all these old and interesting 
sources from whence the Scriptures have come down to 
us, “ The conduits were choked up, but we cleared them , 
and restored the fountain pure as it had flowed in the 
times of old”! 


CHAPTER XL 

THE PROTESTANT COUNTRIES: HOLLAND, GERMANY, DENMARK, 

NORWAY, AND SWEDEN.-STATE OF THE CONTINENT.-LORD 

BEXLEY.— MR. BRANDRAM.-WALES.-SCOTLAND.— ENGLAND.— 

IRELAND.-HOME COLPORTEURS, AND COLLECTORS.-FINAL AP¬ 
PEAL.-MOTIVES FOR RENEWED EXERTION. 

But now we must approach our final review of earth’s 
Protestant nations, and the effects of Bible-distribution 
among them during the last quarter of a century. 

We must close with our own country; therefore we 
will take the rest in brief succession as before, beginning 
with— 

HOLLAND. 

The Netherlands Bible Society had in 1832 been taking 
measures to obtain a good translation of the Javanese New 
Testament. They employed for this purpose Mr. Gericke, 
who went to Java itself; and, being a good oriental 
scholar, and zealous for the cause of God, entered into 
the spirit of the Javanese people more than any Euro¬ 
pean ever did before, acquiring a deep and thorough 
knowledge of their language, character, customs, and reli¬ 
gious principles. While he was getting all this knowledge, 



456 THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

not only by familiar conversation with the people in 
general, but also by the opportunities that were afforded 
to him of being admitted to the courts of the Javanese 
princes, he did not lose sight of the two great points of 
his mission, viz., the composing of a Javanese grammar, 
and the translation of the Bible into that tongue. The 
grammar has been well received in Java, and even the 
Javanese are surprised at it. The King of the Nether¬ 
lands presented, on this account, to Mr. Gericke, a gold 
medal, showing that the government also prized his ex¬ 
ertions. 

In 1844, colportage was adopted with great advantage 
in Holland; and Mr. Tiddy writes, that the sales at the 
dep6t surpass all idea: in one week they amounted to 
2250 volumes. In nine years, the sale of Scriptures in 
Holland has surpassed 326,000 volumes. The depositary 
at Amsterdam writes, in 1853 : “Armed with this sword 
of the Spirit, the colporteurs continue their travels ; and 
this year we have again experienced that our God is 
faithful, and that his word retains its power. The 
opposition of the papacy is increasing. Against the arti¬ 
fices of this party, the strongest bulwark is the word of 
God. Nothing is feared by Rome more than this” 

In 1851, in forwarding his annual Report, and after 
lamenting the loss of Mr. Brandram, Mr. Tiddy says: 
“ There has been, without doubt, a remarkable revival 
brought about in Holland by the Holy Spirit’s blessing 
on the Scriptures circulated by us. The clear type and 
low prices of the books have been the means of intro¬ 
ducing the word of God where before it was not to be 
met with. It would often cheer your heart to see the 
sparkling eyes of children as they receive a beautiful 
Testament or Bible in exchange for the few copper cents 
they have been carefully saving up for that purpose. It 
has always appeared to me that our colportage is literal 
obedience to the command of our Lord, in Luke 14. 23, 
‘ And the Lord said unto the servant, Go out into the 


GERMANY. 


457 


highways and hedges.’ It certainly carries the treasure 
to thousands who would never otherwise receive it.” 

GERMANY. 

In 1843, it was said that the missionary cause called 
forth more interest in the Protestant states of Germany 
than that of the Bible Society, and the reason for this 
was thus expressed: “ The copies of the Bibles which 
we issue send us no reports of their labours ; whereas, the 
missionaries we send out to the heathen relate the dangers 
they pass through, the difficulties they encounter, and the 
success which attends their labours. All this awakens 
and keeps alive an interest in themselves and their work. 
But with the copies of the Scriptures which we send forth, 
it ought to be considered, that their operations, though 
silent, are not less sure. They penetrate into the hearts 
of thousands of families, whom the living preacher would 
never have reached, and there they effect that for which 
they were sent. 

“ We think the cause of gospel truth is making pro¬ 
gress among the Protestant nations of Germany; still it 
will be long before its literature can be purified from its 
anti-Christian leaven. There has been a large distri¬ 
bution of Bibles in the country, both by the Continental 
Societies with the Apocrypha, and by the agents of the 
British and Foreign Bible Society without it; and this 
has been followed by some encouraging appearances of 
the dawn of a brighter day; though, alas! it must still 
be acknowledged that the pulpits and schools are mostly 
occupied by rationalists of various shades ; and it would 
seem as if many years must pass away before the destruc¬ 
tive doctrines so widely spread among all classes will be 
superseded by a simple faith in the truths of revelation. 
They have trifled with the facts of the Bible itself, and 
brought themselves to believe that its miracles are to be 
accounted for by natural causes : they have * taken away 


458 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


from the words of the book,’ and added unto it also by 
the intermixture of the Apocrypha. A large proportion 
of the people are in the hands of the Jesuits, and they 
need a new Luther ‘ to rush like a torrent through the 
channels of the watercourses of the Divine word,’ still 
stopped up by Satan and foolish men, and to carry away 
with his force the blocks and barriers of unbelief and 
mysticism, so that that word may have free course and 
prevail.” 

Mr. E. Millard, the agent in Austria and Hungary, 
having by the mysterious providence of God been com¬ 
pelled to leave that promising sphere, was directed to 
settle at Breslau, and to endeavour to extend the opera¬ 
tions of the Society in Silesia and Posen. Here his chief 
difficulties lie in the extreme poverty of the people, their 
apathy, and their predilection for the Apocrypha. He 
says, indeed, that the friends of the pure word of God 
are worried day by day, and hour by hour, on the con¬ 
tinent, on account of these apocryphal writings. The 
Jesuits have educated the people to believe that our 
Bibles are imperfect. Still a circulation of 10,000 copies 
in one year has taken place, by means of the colporteurs. 

In 1851, the venerable Dr. Steinkopff paid a visit to 
this part of the continent, and an interesting letter from 
him states several pleasing facts. He says, that pious 
ministers and people meet together more frequently than 
they did, even from great distances, to strengthen each 
other’s hands; that there are arising influential home 
missions, and that spiritual religion is making some 
growth. Luther’s German Bible has still a large cir¬ 
culation, and. tens of thousands of Roman Catholics 
boldly venture to read it, in spite of all the thunders of 
the Vatican; 700,000 copies of Dr. Van Ess’s Testament 
have been distributed, and the energetic yet patient 
labours of the Bible-agents are casting seed into a barren 
field, which he believes will yet bring forth fruit: his 
closing paragraph, however, speaks of the present awful 


DENMARK.— NORWAY AND SWEDEN. 459 

condition of the continent in a political, moral, and reli¬ 
gious point of view, which should elicit earnest prayer on 
its behalf, on the part of Christians. One of its promi¬ 
nent evils is the profanation of the Christian Sabbath,— 
a distinguishing fruit of the teaching derived from the 
church which hides the Bible. 

DENMARK. 

The Bishop of Adensee, in this country remarks, that, 
“ with regard to the Christian tendency of the coming 
time, a great deal will depend on whether children from 
ten to fourteen years of age are made acquainted with 
the word of God and of Christ: for what they learn in 
their youth they will not forget in old age; and when 
life brings its sorrows and troubles, they will then know 
where to turn for consolation and blessing.” 

Mr. Henderson visited this country again in 1844, after 
the lapse of nearly forty years, and speaks of a consider¬ 
able number of the inhabitants as inquiring after a better 
way. He says : “In many of the churches, a portion 
of the Lord’s Day is appropriated by the clergy to the 
public reading of the Bible, accompanied by explanatory 
remarks, and the total, issues of the Bible Society in 
Denmark have been 193,000 copies. The general state 
of indifference to religion, however, and the general 
breach of the Sabbath, are very painful to the minds of 
Christian residents here.” 

NORWAY AND SWEDEN. 

There have been colporteurs in Sweden, and in Nor¬ 
way, and the distribution of Bibles has gone on, though 
not so actively as might be desired. More than 100,000 
copies have been circulated in Norway, and more than 
500,000 in Sweden, since 1828. 

In these countries, Bible-distribution is encouraged by 


460 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


the authorities ; and the anniversary meetings of the Bible 
Society are attended by the king and the royal princes ; 
but our limits forbid further enlargement. For the same 
reason, we must not enter upon Finland, Lapland, and 
Greenland, except, indeed, to state in a few words that 
the circulation of the Scriptures has been increasing from 
year to year, and that the evidences of a Divine blessing 
on the work prove that the labours of the Society in the 
frozen regions of the north are “ not in vain in the 
Lord.” 


Our review of the Society’s operations on the continent 
of Europe may be concluded in the language of one who 
visited Belgium and Germany, in the summer of 1852 : 

“ I could not help noticing two classes of facts and cir¬ 
cumstances, calculated on the one hand to awaken appre¬ 
hension, and on the other to inspire hope. 

“ The rulers of continental Europe are persuaded to 
believe that the free use of the Bible and the liberty of 
religious worship are dangerous to the stability of thrones 
and governments, and hence the attempts made to curtail 
the privileges of the people, by laws and police regula¬ 
tions. Jesuit missions are multiplying. These active 
agents of Antichrist itinerate to preach and to lecture. 
Their organs become more daring, and they insinuate 
themselves and their principles into the closets and coun¬ 
cils of princes. Our excellent colporteurs experience in¬ 
creasing difficulties, and, to some extent, personal danger, 
in the prosecution of their work. This is especially the 
case where their labours are carried on amongst an igno¬ 
rant and bigoted popish population, stirred up to oppo¬ 
sition by the orations of Jesuitical priests. While popery 
is thus presenting its difficulties in the way of a free Bible, 
infidelity, again, in various forms, sometimes open and 
vulgar, and sometimes disguised and subtile, in public 
discourses and widely-circulated books, presents powerful 
barriers in our way. 



PKESENT STATE OF THE CONTINENT. 


461 


“ It must be admitted, however, that while there is 
much to awaken apprehension, there is not a little to in¬ 
spire hope, and to afford encouragement. If our foes are 
many, our friends also are numerous, and are increasing 
in number. If the opposition is more bold and bitter on 
the part of papists and infidels, the support and advocacy 
of the Society are becoming more decided and general. 
There are reasons to believe that evangelical religion is 
increasing. Professors and pastors are coming nearer to 
‘ the truth as it is in Jesus.’ A better and purer litera¬ 
ture is progressing. The ‘ Inner Mission’ of Germany 
is doing a great and good work, while the French and 
Belgian Evangelical Societies are showing signs of grow¬ 
ing life and spiritual vigour, which, with God’s blessing 
on the seed sown by our own and other societies, will 
produce a harvest of truth and holiness amongst the 
nations of the continent. 

“ When at sea, between Dover and Ostend, I heard 
some one who had been on deck announcing to the 
passengers below, who, like myself, were longing for dry 
land and day-light, ‘ I am happy to say, the day is break¬ 
ing.’ Whether it is imagination, assisted by an ardent 
desire, or the result of sober investigation and a careful 
survey, I hope I may say, without presumption, in re¬ 
ference to some parts at least of the continent of Europe, 
‘ The day is breaking.’ 

“ ‘ Yes! I hope the day is breaking,— 

Joyful times are near at hand; 

God, the mighty God, is speaking 
By his word in every land: 

Mark his progress! 

Darkness flies at his command. 

“ * While the foe becomes more daring,— 

While he enters like a flood,— 

God the Saviour is preparing 

Means to spread his truth abroad. 

Every language 

Soon shall teli the love of God.’ ” 


462 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


ENGLAND. 

But now, from our Jubilee travels round the world, 
we at last return home to the happy isle which is 
honoured to be still the centre and source of all the 
blessed changes that have been recorded ; and we return 
with a most solemn view of its present responsibilities. 

In glancing at the work of the Bible Society, during 
its second period, at home , we must not omit to notice two 
of its members, the successors of those who had departed, 
and now themselves, also, “ not lost, but gone before,” 
—Lord Bexley, who became president when Lord Teign- 
mouth was no more, and the Rev. Andrew Brandram, 
rector of Beckenham, Kent, who accepted its clerical se¬ 
cretaryship on the death of the Rev. John Owen. 

Lord Bexley was elected president in 1834, and re¬ 
mained for seventeen years, (until removed by death,) 
“the centre of the widest circle the world ever saw.”* 
He was among the most unhesitating, yet prudent, of 
those who defended the cause of the Society, during the 
first years of its existence. The cause was not then popu¬ 
lar, and was much exposed to controversies which it has 
since outlived. Lord Bexley, then Mr. Vansittart, counted 
the cost, and willingly gave it his personal support, at any 
sacrifice. He was one of the earliest cabinet-ministers who 
enrolled their names in its ranks, and always declared that 
he considered it one of the most powerful means for evan¬ 
gelising the whole world. He knew the importance of 
the Bible to others, because he knew its unutterable value 
to his own soul. He was also the last survivor among the 
ministers of the venerable monarch whose wish it was 
“ that every man in his dominions might be able to read 
the Bible,” and the one who practically aimed to fulfil 
the wish of his royal master. When reproached by a 


Earl of Harrowby’s Speech, at the Anniversary of 1851 . 


LORD BEXLEY.—MR. BRANDRAM. 463 

professor of Divinity for “ uniting with dissenters” in this 
great work, he replied, “ So far from repenting of what I 
have done, I feel convinced I shall less and less repent of 
it, as I approach that state in which the distinction of 
churchman and dissenter will be no more.” 

Side by side with this declaration of Lord Bexley’s, 
we should like you to remember that of Dean Milner: 
“ I would not, for all this kingdom can bestow, have 
my conscience loaded with the bitter reflection that I 
had ever, directly or indirectly, been instrumental in ob¬ 
structing the free progress of the British and Foreign 
Bible Society.” 

The Rev. Andrew Brandram, who died at Brighton on 
the 26th of December, 1850, had been for twenty-seven 
years the indefatigable clerical secretary of the Society. 
He is recorded to have received his first religious impres¬ 
sions while at Winchester school, and while preparing for 
Oriel college, Oxford, where he took a double first-class 
rank. It is said, that, placing his books in a closet which 
had been left vacant by the boy who preceded him, he 
found an old Bible, the only thing, it seems, which it had 
not been thought worth while to carry away. Curiosity 
impelled him to read it, and it made him “ wise unto 
salvation.” From that time his whole character was 
altered and probably his after-life influenced as one of 
the chief officers of that noble Institution, to whose 
interests he devoted all the vigour of his manhood. He 
kept that old Bible till his death. It may be truly said 
of him, that he was “ in labours most abundant.” Year 
after year, an increase of those labours was rendered 
necessary by the constantly-enlarging operations of the 
Society. He undertook a large portion of the extensive 
correspondence, domestic and foreign, besides travelling 
frequently throughout England to attend anniversary 
meetings; and these, in connection with his other duties, 
domestic and pastoral, exacted from him an amount of 
effort which few could have sustained so long, and under 


464 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


which his robust and vigorous frame at last gave way. 
The result was, that, when it pleased God that the hand 
of disease should be laid upon him, all the springs of life 
seemed to have been broken at once. He quickly sank 
into a state of entire prostration, and from the couch of 
utter feebleness, rose only “ to depart and be with Christ 
for ever.” The memorial adopted by the committee adds, 
“Mr. Brandram combined qualities but rarely found in 
the same individual,—strength of body and mind, talent 
and learning, solidity of judgment, singleness of purpose, 
integrity of conduct, and an independence of spirit always 
under the control of Christian principle. Not having re¬ 
spect to his own ease, nor shunning reproach for Christ’s 
sake, he laboured and toiled, and watched and prayed, 
in all things commending himself to the approval not of 
men, but of God.” 

Of the present secretaries and home-agents of the British 
and Foreign Bible Society, nothing need be said at pre¬ 
sent: the memorial to their faithful devotedness, will, we 
hope, belong to a yet far future day. They all rejoice 
with joy unspeakable over the ripening harvest which is 
beginning to be reaped of the precious seed of the word. 
The Right Hon. the Earl of Shaftesbury has succeeded 
Lord Bexley as president. The eye, in looking down the 
present list of vice-presidents, will observe a large phalanx 
of bishops, earls, and lords. The Rev. Dr. Pinkerton, Mr. 
Benjamin Barker, Mons. de Pressense, Mr. W. P. Tiddy, 
the Rev. Isaac Lowndes, Lieut. Graydon, and Mr. E. Mil¬ 
lard, are the foreign agents at Frankfort, at Smyrna, in 
Paris, in Belgium, at Malta, in Switzerland, in Northern 
Italy, and at Breslau. We hope we may have led you 
to look with earnest interest on all future reports of their 
proceedings. 

In the year 1836, after a survey of their field of labour, 
the committee ask themselves in their Report, “ Is the 
object of their Institution now attained? May their 
mutual compact now be honourably dissolved? a.nd are 


SYMPATHY WITH THE SOCIETY. 


465 


they at liberty to draw back from their post? They are 
constrained to answer, No.” “ Notwithstanding the efforts 
of all other societies directed to the same object, the claims 
of the world still multiply upon us; for there is scarcely 
a country, civilised or uncivilised, which does not wait to 
receive from us the law of our God; and even in our own 
metropolis, there is still an incredible number of families 
not almost, but altogether, destitute of even a fragment of 
the Scriptures of truth.” 

In the meantime, most cheering evidences of sympathy 
and interest evince the feeling of the country in general 
towards the well-known and loved Society. It may be 
mentioned among other facts, that its legal advisers, in all 
cases of difficulty, tender gratuitously their professional 
services; and Messrs. Brown, Marten, Thomas, and Hol- 
lams, continue to this day its honorary solicitors. 

The Principality has always yielded to the British and 
Foreign Bible Society its full quota of worthy successors 
of the late Mr. Charles; and the agent for Wales thus 
writes in 1837:—“It is a source of satisfaction to me, 
that I have been able to travel so many hundred miles 
with so little expense to the Society. I have journeyed 
through a country where the Bible Society has many 
good and trusty fellow-labourers: consequently, I have 
never paid for a single night’s accommodation at an inn, 
during the five weeks I was from home. It is true I 
have been repeatedly accommodated at inns; but when I 
called for my bill, have been told that they had never 
any account for an agent of the Bible Society; and this 
hospitality has often included conveyance to the meetings 
which I have attended.” 

The same agent gives interesting tidings of Anglesea, 
the ancient Mona—the old home of the Druids. He calls 
to mind that Anglesea took the lead among the Welsh 
auxiliaries, that it had collected upwards of 1000/. in one 
year for the Bible Society, and that its remittances average 
from 500/. to 600/. per annum. He adds, that, taking 


466 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


into consideration the limited extent of the island, the 
small number of inhabitants (48,000), and the compara¬ 
tive poverty of the people, this amount of contribution is 
astonishing , viz., threepence annually for every man, wo¬ 
man, and child in the island, and can only be accounted 
for on the principle that “ union is strength.” If Eng¬ 
land, Wales, and Scotland contributed in the same pro¬ 
portion, the Society would have a free income amount¬ 
ing to 175,OOOZ. per annum. It is a gratifying fact, that 
in all the English cities and towns where there is a con¬ 
siderable Welsh population, Cambrian Bible Societies are 
formed, to supply themselves with the Scriptures, and to 
assist the Parent Society in its general operations. It is 
reported that one of these, the Liverpool Welsh branch, 
remits on an average the sum of 350/. per annum, as a 
free contribution to the funds of the Society. 

Thus, as it was the destitution of Wales that originated 
the Bible Society, we cannot but rejoice to behold the 
unabated zeal of the Ancient Britons to bestow the Divine 
word on others. Would that their example were fol¬ 
lowed !—for while the Bible Society is praised as at the 
head of the benevolent institutions of the age, not merely 
in importance, but in the extent and success of its labours, 
its free income of 54,000/. for all home and foreign pur¬ 
poses , is little more than one-lialf that of the leading mis¬ 
sionary institutions; and while they have doubled their 
income in the last fifteen years, the free contributions to 
the British and Foreign Bible Society have not increased 
in the same proportion. 

The still destitute condition of the poor Highlanders of 
Scotland engaged the attention of the committee. In the 
poorer districts, in years of scarcity, the people having 
neither bread nor firing, and seldom if ever any money, 
a vote of 300 Bibles and 700 Testaments was made to a 
member of parliament, who employed colporteurs in such 
neighbourhoods. In the Shetland Isles, a missionary 



HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS OF SCOTLAND. 407 


asked a young woman about nineteen years of age, wno 
had been his guide for several miles, whether she would 
accept of a sixpence or a New Testament for her trouble. 
The question evidently seemed to throw her into con¬ 
siderable perplexity ; but she soon replied, “ I never had 
a sixpence of my own since I was born, and you may be 
sure I should like to have one now; but the New Testa¬ 
ment is the Book of God, and therefore I will choose it, 
if you please.” 

The member of parliament above referred to, Mr. Lil- 
lingston of Lochalsh, continued for several years to receive 
grants of Bibles and Testaments for his destitute neigh¬ 
bours. Mr. Paterson visited him in his romantic seclu¬ 
sion on the borders of a land-locked bay, was introduced 
to his colporteurs, and saw the yacht which made mis¬ 
sionary voyages with the word of life from islet to islet. 
The population were gradually taught to read; and in 
1839, 3000 Bibles and Testaments were supplied to them. 
Mr. L. sent a donation of 100/. from himself, and the 
amazing contribution to the Society of 62/. from the poor 
Highlanders, many of whom gave their little all for the 
time-being, to testify their gratitude. 

In the year 1840, the Society supplied 38,500 New 
Testaments, by way of loan, among families still found 
destitute of the sacred Scriptures in London, chiefly dis¬ 
tributed through the agents of the City Mission ; and 
many pleasing results are recorded. 

In the year 1841, an issue of the Scriptures was re¬ 
ported larger than any ever made before: this was owing 
to their cheapened price, and the increasing efforts of the 
Auxiliary Societies. The Liverpool Town Mission made 
a canvass of the neighbourhood of that large town ; and 
5000 families, out of a population of 15,000, residing in 
179 streets, were found destitute of the Scriptures. In 
about one-third of the town of Leeds, 1200 families were 
found without Bibles or Testaments, nearly all of whom 
were declared to be too poor to purchase them. These 


468 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


facts telling upon one another, the Report of 1841 an¬ 
nounced an issue of more than “ 900,000 copies of the 
inspired records,” from the depositories, at home and 
abroad. 

The Report for 1842 alludes to Luther’s wish—“Would 
that that Book alone were in all languages, before the eyes, 
in the ears, and in the hearts of all! ” and to the Bible 
Society as advancing towards the fulfilment of that wish. 
It also mentions the profound reverence and delight of 
Luther and his friend Melancthon, while occupied in the 
German translation. “ They often paused in their labours 
to give free expression to their wonder, to listen to the 
‘ very voice of the Creator of Heaven and Earth ’ ”; and 
the waiter adds, “ Oh! that we might see revived that 
spirit of eager delight with which the people who had 
heard the reformers preach, hailed those first attempts to 
put into their hands the translated Scriptures! ‘ You 

have preached Christ to us,’ said they; ‘ now let us hear 
Himself /’ and they caught at the sheets given to the 
world, as a letter coming to them from heaven. A kin¬ 
dred spirit to this is awakening on the plains of Africa, 
and in the islands of the Southern Ocean. Bechuanas, 
Tahitians, New Zealanders, and Rarotongans, are acting 
the part of the German peasants: they catch at the sheets 
given to the world, as a letter coming to them from hea¬ 
ven. This letter from heaven it is our single object to 
publish and circulate; we wish it to be read by men of 
all nations, and kindreds, and tongues; we wish that all 
the earth should hear its words of wondrous mercy. Shall 
we speak of discouragements, or fear them? Shall we 
dwell on the distinctions that divide us, important though 
in some respects they be? No; rather let us hasten to 
bear each his part, in putting into the hands of the whole 
human family the common record of our Father’s love. 
Angels might envy us our honourable employ.” 

The years 1845 and 1846 were very remarkable for 
the increasing demand and distribution at home. Some 


BIBLE-DISTRIBUTION AT HOME. 


469 

friends visiting Blackpool, a small watering-place on the 
coast of Lancashire, had their attention awakened to the 
spiritual wants of the neighbourhood, commenced a sale 
of the sacred Scriptures, and afterwards formed a Bible 
Association. In a few months, 1890 copies were circu¬ 
lated in that limited district. 

This movement was greatly encouraged by the zealous 
co-operation of a gentleman from Manchester, who re¬ 
turned home with his mind much set on attempting a 
wider distribution of the Scriptures among the immense 
population by which he saw himself surrounded. After 
conference and prayer with a few pious friends, it was 
resolved to make the experiment of offering the Scrip¬ 
tures for sale among the workpeople of the numerous 
mills and factories, and wherever an open door was found. 
Unexampled success attended the effort; willing pur¬ 
chasers presented themselves in every direction; while at 
Manchester donations and increased subscriptions were 
promptly offered, more than sufficient to allay the appre¬ 
hension of injury to the general funds of the Society. 

From the Manchester depository, 96,711 copies of the 
Scriptures were issued in twelve months,—a number equal 
to the distribution of the preceding twelve years! The 
auxiliaries at Liverpool, Bristol, Bath, Hereford, Derby, 
Leicester, and other places, greatly increased their dis¬ 
tributions. The total issues of 1846 amounted to the 
unprecedented number of 1,441,651 copies, and those of 
1847 were no fewer than 1,419,283 ! 


From this time the Song of the Jubilee may be said 
to have begun. Nearly three millions of copies issued in 
two years,—forwarded by the most rapid conveyances, 
such as our fathers never dreamed of, to every quarter 
of the globe,—a bright point in the world’s moral his¬ 
tory, to which the Christian’s eye could turn, from all 
the vexatious dissensions of party, and especially from 
the designs carrying on, on the part of Rome, to effect 



470 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


the restoration of Britain to that see. “ The pope has 
put his foot into England, but all the nations look to 
England and her Bible.” And nowhere has there been 
a wider delivery of the volume of inspiration than within 
our own borders. Among the poor and the rich, in our 
rural districts, as well as in our towns and cities, in the 
palace, the school-room, and the cottage, the Bible is a 
book possessed —by many, very many a book beloved. It 
can everywhere in England be the Book appealed to. 
Let the war of principles rise to whatever height it may, 
the friends of the Bible need not yield to fear. 

In the retrospect of forty years, the Parent committee 
took a wide range, and made it a season of “ solemn 
remembrance.” In that forty years, more copies of the 
written voice of God had gone forth upon the earth than 
in any equal period since the world began—perhaps more 
than in all former periods added together. It must be 
presumed that He who “ ordereth all things after the 
counsel of his own will,” has had some special, some 
extraordinary, design in the fresh movement which He 
has permitted to take place. 

When the Bible Society took its rise, controversy 
between Christians was very much at rest. Christianity 
had only to struggle with infidelity as its common foe; 
but now questions and claims that had slept for ages are 
re-agitated, and symptoms spreading far and wide around 
us, mark the gathering storm. Meantime the Book , which 
must be the only unfailing standard of appeal, is no longer 
hidden among the wise and the mighty. It is now in the 
hands of innumerable people,—an end accomplished by 
Bible Societies, possibly in preparation for this very hour. 
“To the law and to the testimony,” each for ourselves; 
and, as Wiclif said, “ The truth shall prevail.” 

The Song of Jubilee is almost overpowering, as as¬ 
cending in many tongues from all regions of the world. 
It is impossible to convey in the last chapter of this little 
work, any fair impression of the spirit that pervades these 


UNIVERSAL SONG OF JUBILEE. 471 

Reports” of the circulation of the Book of truth for the 
last ten years. One of them, if read and thought upon, 
would seem enough to kindle a kindred flame of zeal and 
love in the hearts of a thousand fresh labourers. Well 
may the agents rejoice in their work, think it the best 
work in the world, and never weary of it, till they wear 
out in it!- Well may the hearts of the colporteurs burn 
within them, as their poor dwellings are crowded until 
midnight by persons asking for the Scriptures, from the 
lively boy to the decrepit old man*—or as they obtain 
access to “wild and savage households,” and gather out 
of them, by the word of God, the “brands from the 
burning”—or when asked, “What sort of postmen are 
you, now, with that sac on your backs?” they reply, 
“ We are higher postmen than any other kind of postmen 
on earth : we carry letters from heaven. When we go 
out, we cannot go without our God going with us. We 
want courage and wisdom from above, and especially a 
humble meekness ; for the fiery and angry zeal of Peter 
cuts off*, but the Spirit of God in us builds up : then we 
confound the mockers, and shut the mouths of gainsayers, 
and the heart of the humble is refreshed.” Let us every 
day pray for these colporteurs , all over the ivorld , for they 
are doing the great work of the age, as well as those who 
are. directing them. 

There are colporteurs at home as well as abroad. A 
colporteur has gone forth from Lutterworth, the scene of 
Wiclif’s own labours, and 474 years after the death of 
him who first gave the Bible to England, and has sold 
in the course of five years, within a circuit of ten miles, 
4500 Bibles and Testaments. How would the reformer 
himself have rejoiced to see this day! The man in ques¬ 
tion was a hawker by trade; and a lady who desired 
the distribution of the holy word offered him Id. for 
every Bible, and \d. for every Testament, he might sell 


Report, 1845, p. xlix. 


472 


THE BOOK AMD ITS STORY. 


in his accustomed rounds. In the first year, beginning 
August 5, 1847, he sold 242 Bibles, 364 Testaments ; in 
that beginning 1848, 116 Bibles, 211 Testaments; in 
the third year, 121 Bibles, 200 Testaments. In his 
fourth year he came under the inspection of the Bible 
Association at Lutterworth. From that time, in addi¬ 
tion to selling in his regular rounds, he gave one whole 
day every fortnight to the sale of the Scriptures alone, at 
the average pay of 2s. 6d. He went into every house, 
and sold to those he met along the road. In the year 
ending August 1852, he sold 384 Bibles, 626 Testa¬ 
ments; and in 1853, 471 Bibles, 851 Testaments. He 
walked on an average, on these especial days, eighteen 
miles ; he carried perhaps 7 0 books : on one occasion he 
carried 104, and sold every copy! 

Now, can there not be found some suitable person to 
colport in this way in every town and village in this 
kingdom? The committee of the British and Foreign 
Bible Society have “ resolved to adopt, as far as possible, 
an extensive and efficient system of colportage throughout 
Great Britain in this year of Jubilee.” They will, during 
this year, and from the " special fund” which this year 
will be raised in addition to their ordinary income, be 
able to appropriate grants of help to such committees as 
shall request their aid, in order to the appointment and 
inspection of such colporteurs, to carry the word of God 
and that alone, not into districts already canvassed and 
under the care of Bible-collectors, but into those stray 
hamlets and isolated spots, as well as into all unvisited 
neighbourhoods, where the treasure has not before been 
offered. In this Jubilee Year, as far as the Bible Society 
can accomplish it, an attempt should be made to convey 
the written word of God to every cottage in England, 
Scotland, and Wales,—we trust, not excepting Ireland. 

Now, who will not wish to aid in this glorious work, 
by contribution or effort ? 

The Kev. P. B. Clifford of St. Matthew’s, Bristol, has 


DUTY OF ENLARGED EFFORT. 473 

lately communicated a circumstance which has caused 
him peculiar pleasure: that several boys of his congrega¬ 
tion have voluntarily come forward without his sugges¬ 
tion, and dedicated the money which they had saved for 
purchasing fireworks on the Fifth of November, to the 
blessed work of sending the word of God to China. And 
from one school alone he has had the gratification of 
receiving five guineas for this holy enterprise, which 
otherwise would have been expended in fireworks. Even 
children, whose parents are connected with Bible Associa¬ 
tions, can be little colporteurs with their bag or basket, 
and sell around their own homes many a Bible or Testa¬ 
ment. They are better sold than given, as more likely 
to be valued. There are Testaments for fourpence, and 
Bibles for tenpence ; with every variety of superior price. 
Their elders can seek or set to work a colporteur,—a man 
of piety, and of bodily strength to carry his load, and walk 
sufficient distances,—who should render regular reports 
of his sales to responsible persons connected with the So¬ 
ciety, who will provide his stock and inspect his accounts. 

Oh! that when the world-wide Jubilee-meetings shall 
have been held, and when this system of colportage has 
been fully established all over the country, the arrange¬ 
ment of which is now in progress, those meetings and 
those domiciliary visits may be the means of calling 
forth from a thousand hidden sources, persons who do 
not even know at this moment how they could “ work 
together with God,” in the distribution of his word, but 
in whose hearts He has planted the wish to do so ! 
Oh ! that many may come forward as contributors, each in 
their degree, from a penny to a thousand pounds, offered 
“ as unto the Lord,” or as collectors, determined every 
week to devote a portion of their time to this noble object, 
and to make it henceforth the thought of their lives how 
they shall assist and induce others to assist in spreading 
the word of God ! Out of this number also may come 
missionaries to carry the w T ord within the now unfolding 


474 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


doors of China and of India. Many would find health and 
happiness even for themselves in pursuing such an object. 

There is a true tale told of a lady, who was always 
ill and lying on the sofa, till a Bible Association was 
established in her neighbourhood, of which she became 
an active and happy member, and had no more ill- 
health. And well might this effect be produced on the 
physical frame, for the soul had set before it a great ob¬ 
ject. She entered upon a new world of sympathy with 
all who love God’s word upon earth. She was refreshed 
by the glad gifts of the free penny to the cause of God. 
At many a cottage door she heard it said, “Yes, I will 
give it, because my mother gave it for me when I was a 
child.” “ It is but a penny; but I am sure I am glad to 
give the Bible to others; I shall not miss it.” No! they 
not only do not miss it, but the blessing of Him who seeth 
all things is found to rest on all they have. If the selfish 
occupants of many a larger mansion, who repulse the 
modest Bible-collector with pleas of “ previous engage¬ 
ment,” “ having nothing for charity,” and sometimes the 
more rational one of “ knowing nothing at all about it,” 
could have paid with her these visits to these cottages, 
they would have changed their minds, and become helpers 
also in the work. 

An occasional paper, issued by the Bible colportage 
committee for the Manchester district, full of interesting 
facts, shows what may be expected when this system is 
judiciously conducted. The anecdotes cannot be quoted, 
but one sentence is important: “ The efforts made to 

distribute the Scriptures among Romanists (of whom they 
seem to have found large numbers), are likely to issue 
in much good.” Six colporteurs have been employed: 
the total number of calls they have made is 215,916 ; 
the total number of Bibles and Testaments sold, 59,247 ; 
the sum realized by the sales, 2000/. 11s. 2 \d. The secre¬ 
tary of the Ladies’ Bible Association in one of the largest 
towns says: “The sales effected by the ladies have not 


IRELAND. 


475 

been at all interfered with by the labours of the colpor¬ 
teur ; for the 4000 Bibles and Testaments which he has 
sold have been among those to whom the ladies had no 
means of access, and whom they felt most anxious should 
be supplied. They believe that not more than one-third 
of the work that might be accomplished by a colporteur 
in this populous town has yet been done.” 

IRELAND. 

We must also notice our sister isle, in which at the 
present time there are about 500 auxiliaries, in direct 
connection with the Hibernian Bible Society at Dublin, 
all of which are more or less engaged in sending forth the 
precious word of life. During the last few years, the 
annual distribution of the Scriptures has exceeded 100,000 
copies, making a total of 2,138,437. This however, is 
independent of the large grants made directly from the 
Parent Society to the various Societies labouring for the 
benefit of Ireland, amounting last year alone to upwards 
of 33,000 copies, and making a total of 1,650,000 granted 
to that portion of the British empire. Colportage has 
been carried on in Ireland over more than thirty of its 
counties; and by this instrumentality about 150,000 copies 
have been distributed in seven years. 

We cannot but view the remarkable movement taking 
place among the Roman-Catholic population in the west 
of Ireland as the result of this distribution. Notice of 
this change has for some time past appeared in the Reports 
of the Parent Society: in that of 1850 is the following:— 

“ It has been very gratifying to the committee to hear 
of the religious movement that is going on in different 
parts of Ireland, produced, they are assured, by the read¬ 
ing of the Scriptures, especially in the Irish language. 
A strong desire has even been expressed among the people 
for the Irish Scriptures with marginal references, and 
intelligence like the following continually reaches us: 


476 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


Roman-Catholic farmers and peasants petition for instruc¬ 
tion in the Irish Bible, and assert their ‘ inalienable right 
to read it.’ The setting sun witnesses young men and 
maidens, old men and children, leaving their homes under 
cover of the shades of evening to steal to the lonely cabin 
on the mountain side, to ‘ search the Scriptures ’ by the 
light of the bog-wood splinter! Daring and ferocious 
ribbon-men, bent on deeds of blood, and mad against the 
Protestant faith, meet with the ‘ strange Book,’ and read 
it, and become clothed and in their right mind, and are 
found sitting at the feet of Jesus!” 

From the Mayo district we have similar reports: “ The 
word of life in the vernacular language is obtaining en¬ 
trance into the most retired parts of the mountain-districts, 
and the desire to learn to read the Scriptures is increasing 
everywhere. In 1851, 22,390 copies were sold in Ireland 
by colporteurs.” 

Another cause of this change may be noticed. The 
secretary of the Sunday School Society for Ireland says: 
“ In the Report for 1853, we calculate that at least 
1,200,000 scholars have passed through the Sunday- 
schools during these thirty years. In the course of that 
period there have been issued to the schools three quarters 
of a million of Bibles and Testaments, and one million 
and a quarter of portions of Scripture. These are carried 
home by the scholars to their families.” Mere secular 
education would never have wrought these wonders in 
Ireland. This religious movement has extended during 
these three years to hundreds and thousands. The Earl 
of Roden has testified to it in his interesting letters ; and 
the very report of it is causing Roman Catholics con¬ 
tinually to read and search the Scriptures, in order to find 
out what it is that has produced so extraordinary an effect 
on their old friends. 

The beautiful Report for 1850 closes with these words: 
“ Is it not refreshing in an age like the present, when the 
Bible is assaulted and maligned, when its authority ia 


BIBLE JUBILEES. 


477 

impugned and its inspiration denied,—is it not refreshing 
to behold this despised Book going forth into every land 
‘ with signs and wonders following ’ ?” Among the nearly 
8000 verses of which the New Testament is composed, 
perhaps every one has touched some heart and roused 
some conscience, and confirmed the faith of some now in 
glory. “We bow to the overwhelming conviction, that 
the mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken, and called 
the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down 
thereof.” 


So much for the Jubilee-field in Great Britain itself. 
The Society has reached the age of fifty years,—an age 
remarkable in the existence of persons, communities, and 
institutions! God trains man for eternity, by making him 
notice various periods of time. Man numbers his own 
months and years; but God Himself instituted the two 
periods of Sabbaths and Jubilees. There have been sixty- 
seven Jubilees since the word of God began to be written. 
Almost 112 generations of men have passed from earth 
since then; but only the last and this present have seen 
that holy word “ have free course and prevail.” What 
may not the generation now living, and the next genera¬ 
tion, yet see! Space fails us, though vast topics of interest 
are left untouched concerning the colonies, and exempli¬ 
fying the Bible as the friend of the negro—happily no 
more the slave of Britain! One of this rescued race, while 
reading a copy of the Scriptures given to him from the 
Society, said, that those who gave him that Bible gave 
him his life: he prays to God for them. “ I read,” said 
he, “a chapter, and then God talks to me: I shut my 
book, and then I talk with God.” 

Nor are the colonies alone passed over. The Bible in 
Burmah, and also in Greece, the classic and apostolic 
land, where many thousands are coming within the 
influence of the Divine word in being taught to read 
it, offer, with countless other inviting fields of research, a 



478 


THE, BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


rich reward to the exploring eye. A letter from Athens, 
says, “ Missionary efforts may fail, human instruments 
may he withdrawn, but the word of God must have free 
course.” No seed cast upon the waters ever yielded so 
rich a harvest as that which issues from the garners of the 
Bible Society: there are many thousands here who are 
still famishing for the bread of life. 

The delegates from America informed us, with every 
expression of Christian sympathy and regard, that there 
are 1400 auxiliary societies in America scattered over the 
whole land, and nearly 2800 branch societies. When 
the American Bible Society was first formed, the districts 
now included by these were a perfect wilderness, where 
the savage roamed unmolested. The rapid increase of 
their population, their field of labour widening from year 
to year, their new and beautiful Bible Society House in 
New York, and their income increasing by 85007. a-year, 
with their annual distribution of 779,000 volumes, all 
formed subjects of admiration to the listening father-land 
which first made the movement that America rejoiced to 
imitate. 


But now, the Story of the Book must close. The facts 
of the Narrative will, it is believed, make strong appeal 
to those who already know and love the Bible Society ; 
but it may possibly also fall into the hands of some who 
have not hitherto been aware of its claims. 

There are hundreds of thousands of persons who are 
not aware of the existence of the system of the Bible So¬ 
ciety spreading throughout England, as a great fact. 
They have therefore never understood how much this 
cause has tended to make their country what she is, and 
to keep her what she is—the land of the Sabbath and of 
the Bible, sitting at peace amid the tumults of the na¬ 
tions, abiding under the blessing of her God because his 
word is sent forth from her borders to all the earth. 





REVIEW OF THE PAST. 


479 

The ways and means by which this work is done are 
now before those who shall have read this book,—the facts 
and figures having been collected from authentic records. 

These pages contain no new speculations,—they are 
only a presentation of the old and the true. It is hoped 
they will speak to the young with the power of novelty : 
they, at least, are not supposed to have fully considered 
the details of the past, and they are themselves the hope 
of the future. The Bible Society needs, at this moment, 
fresh aids for fresh purposes ; it needs the full emphasis 
and support of the clergy of our National Church, and 
of the ministers of all other Christian churches ; it needs 
young men and women of all classes, from the highest 
to the lowest, who shall be devoted seriously and entirely 
to its noble service. Its truest hope is in the better part 
of Young England. 

The present age is one of fearful indifference to the 
truth, as well as of open enmity to it; and it requires the 
enthusiasm of youth to strive against its lukewarmness, 
as well as against its error. 

To you, then, whose hearts are not yet petrified, the 
bloom of whose early ardour is not yet faded by inter¬ 
course with a pleasure-loving world; to you who are 
oapable of being elevated in character by the pursuit of 
a sublime object, that object is here presented; an object 
worth living for—and. if necessary, worth dying for. 

Resolve that you will lay a stone in this pyramid ! 
that you will be a fibre, striking root from this banian 
tree. If a Bible Association is formed in your neigh¬ 
bourhood, or if one has been long formed there, and it is 
in a state needing revival, resolve that you will give it 
honest and hearty help; and do this in remembrance of 
what will be required at your hand in that day when 
God shall say, “ Hast thou kept my word ? hast thou 
made it known to any soul among thy perishing fellow- 
sinners, for my sake?” Miserable will be the answer if 
you must reply, “ To no man, Lord.” 


480 


THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 


England has done so much for the distribution of the 
Bible, that in your day she must do vastly more! She 
has raised herself by what she has already done into the 
seat of high responsibility. She cannot draw back: she 
must go forward. The time is come when the members 
of God’s Universal Church must rise above the spirit of 
party, and, ascending into the higher atmosphere which 
is breathed in the Bible Society (for in Earl-street, it is 
said, they never know the denomination to which each 
member belongs), learn to agree on two points, viz., to 
“ hold fast the faithful word,” and also u to love one 
another,” and in this temper to gird on their armour, 
having in their hand “ the sword of the Spirit, which is 
the word of God.” 

The church of tradition has made ready for the battle: 
the hosts of unbelievers are zealous for the dispersion of 
their errors. Satan has even contrived a new book of false¬ 
hood, called “ the book of Mormon,” whereby he is de¬ 
luding thousands in this nineteenth century of intelli¬ 
gence and inquiry. And how are these mixed hosts of 
evil to be met ? There is no new weapon to seek, but 
simply to perceive the full power of the old principle of 
union , to lay hold of it , and to use it , in the name of the 
Lord . 

When our own empire is more fully supplied with the 
word of God, and more deeply pervaded by its spirit, 
such a light may go forth from it as shall bear the witness 
to all the world. The English language is spoken over 
three quarters of the globe. Hence our own opportunities 
and responsibilities as a nation ! “ The gospel of the 

kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness 
to all nations,” and this is done by the multiplication 
and prayerful distribution of copies of the Divine word, 
which it is promised shall be accompanied by the teaching 
of the Holy Spirit. 

Missionaries have prepared it in the tongues of many 
peoples, and they are also its chief distributors in foreign 


MOTIVES FOR RENEWED EXERTION. 481 

climes. They “ go forth weeping, bearing precious seed, 
and shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing 
their sheaves with them” (Psalm 126. 6). “ The sower 

soweth the word.” “ In the morning he is to sowffiis seed, 
and in the evening to withhold not his hand; for he 
knoweth not whether shall prosper, either this or that, 
or whether both shall be alike good . 5 Some will be 
sown on good ground, and bring forth fruit: “the seed 
is the word, and the field is the world.” 

Let any one, now aware of the influence oi which this 
Institution is the great centre, endeavour to realize the 
sad idea of a closed Bible Society House—closed as by a 
Russian ukase, or an Austrian edict—the shutters up, and 
the doors fastened! If this were possible, what a source 
of light and life t> the universe would be extinguished— 
the correspondence of the British and Foreign Bible So¬ 
ciety concluded, its accounts wound up, and its officers 
dismissed! May that day never dawn on our free coun¬ 
try ! Abiding under the shadow of England’s throne, 
may the Bible Society still go on to pour fresh oil into 
the seven-branched candlestick of the ancient churches— 
into the Nestorian, the Armenian, the Coptic, the Abys¬ 
sinian, the Vaudois, the British, and the Jewish—that in 
all parts of the world their light may again lighten the 
darkness around them—-and that they may unite to speed 
the bright angel flying in the midst of heaven, “ having 
the everlasting gospei to preach unto them that dwell on 
the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue 
and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God and give 
glory to Him ; for the hour ci his judgment is come; 
and worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the 
sea, and the fountains of waters! And there followed 
another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that 
great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine 
of the wrath of her fornication” (Rev. 14. 6-8). 

“ Very much land is yet to be possessed,” vast is the 
magnitude of the work which remains to be done. At 

6 32 


482 THE BOOK AND ITS STORY. 

the utmost possible computation of Bibles already circu¬ 
lated, 700 millions of souls, or 140 millions of families, 
are yet left totally destitute! 

Even if England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, were 
adequately provided, the kingdoms and countries of Eu¬ 
rope are not half supplied! 

Supposing the United States of America to possess 
Bibles to the same extent with ourselves, look at the 
native tribes, and the vast continent of South America! 
Forget not China! with her 360 millions. Remember 
India ! with her 150 millions. I ito her a million Testa¬ 
ments could be supplied to-morrow, the means of distri¬ 
buting them are all ready, and she longs for the boon. 
Think of the just discovered cities and thickly peopled 
tracts of inner Africa! then of all Oceanica! and, im¬ 
pressed with a fresh sense of the wants of the world— 
of the power of the Book—and of the truth of its Story— 
let us arise and “work while it is called to-day; for the 
night cometh when no man can work.” Work together 
with God, who has said, “ My word shall not re¬ 
turn unto Me void; but it shall accomplish 

THAT WHICH I PLEASE, AND SHALL PROSPER IN 
THE THING WHEREUNTO I SENT IT ” (Isa. 55. 11). 


Addenda. 


ADDENDA. 


It has been thought desirable, in preparing a new Edition of 
this Volume, to add to its pages a few items of recent in¬ 
formation relating to the fruits of the Jubilee Year of the 
Bible Society, which has been truly called “ a year of years.” 

It has pleased Him, whose is the silver and the gold, to 
put it into the hearts of his people, to cast into the Jubilee 
treasury, for the distribution of his Word, no less a sum 
than One Hundred Thousand Pounds , including the special 
offering for the Chinese New Testament Fund of Thirty- 
seven Thousand Pounds. This was done without injury to 
the ordinary receipts of the Society, which amounted to One 
Hundred and Twenty-two Thousand Pounds ,—showing an 
increase on the income of the preceding year of Eight Thou¬ 
sand Pounds in free contributions, and of Eleven Thousand 
Pounds from the extra sale of Bibles. The total sum from 
all sources, placed at the disposal of the Committee, being 
Two Hundred and Twenty-two Thousand Pounds ,—the largest 
amount ever received in a single year by any one religious 
Society. We may believe that “ the Lord had need of it,” 
or He would not have brought this to pass; and “ He hath 
done great things, whereof we are glad.” 

The world-wide Jubilee Meetings have been held:—held 
in halls and school-rooms, and sometimes in open fields, and 
in the unroofed spaces of our noble old ruined castles.* And 
they have not merely presented cheering statements of ac¬ 
counts, but the hearts of the speakers, and the hearts of the 
hearers, have together been stirred with a fresh sense of the 
high mission in which the Society is engaged,—in nothing 

* As the Jubilee Meeting at Carnarvon, North Wales. 



484 


ADDENDA. 


less than the utterance of the Voice of God to man. That 
Voice is heard from watchtowers which now encircle the 
whole globe; and though yet too few and far between, they 
are ever multiplying; the words of life are penetrating to the 
ends of the world. 

During the whole of the Jubilee Year, most joyous tidings 
were received from Auxiliary Societies in every region. From 
the ice-fields of the North, to the glowing plains of India; 
from island and continent, from the strongholds of hea¬ 
thenism, and from the heart of the Holy Land itself, came 
the song of the Jubilee, wafted in sympathy to the Father- 
land of Bibles. From communities and families, from old 
men and children, young men and maidens; from the Queen 
and the peasant, poured the Jubilee offerings,—there has 
been no such oneness of feeling and purpose before in all 
earth’s history! 

The details of recent operations, seem as if they might be 
best remembered under the five divisions before adopted,— 
Protestant and Catholic , Mahomedan and Heathen Countries , 
and Ancient Churches. But a few particulars only can be 
selected from those which crowd for admission. 


From xhe PROTESTANT countries we must choose 
England; and from all other fields of interest, point to 
the work of her Domestic Colporteurs, and her distribution 
of the Scriptures to her Army and Navy. 

Grants from the Jubilee Fund for Colportage , have been 
made to fifty districts which had applied for them, be¬ 
sides London itself, amounting to upwards of 2000?. It has 
hitherto been exceedingly difficult to find the suitable men 
for colporteurs; and when found, and proved efficient, they 
are apt to be sought and secured for what is called higher 
work. Yet what work can be higher than bearing the bread 
of life to the tens of thousands of perishing souls scattered 
over mountain and moor, and along highways and hedges, 
who might otherwise never taste of it? Yes, and it is found 
that among the neglected crowds of the lower population in 
large towns and cities, the man with the Book of books in his 



COLPORTAGE. 


485 

hand, is not only wanted but welcomed. The Bible Society 
intend to continue grants towards this object through another 
year, under careful regulation. The Rev. J. A. Page, the 
agent for Yorkshire, writes :— 

“ My colporteurs have already done a great work in the 
dissemination of the Scriptures, and have also been the 
means of reviving two important associations in Bradford and 
Hull, where upwards of 1100 subscribers for Bibles have 
been added to the lists of the lady collectors. I find that 
nothing tends so much to increase the interest in our Society 
as the labours of the colporteurs.” 

The Rev. T. Davies, Vicar of Trevethin, Pontypool, says:— 

“ This movement is gradually rising in popular estimation. 
I make a point, at our evening service on Sundays, to men¬ 
tion the measure of success which has attended the labours 
of the colporteur during the week, and from the beginning; 
and I learn with pleasure that others of my brethren are 
doing the same. The result is, that wherever he penetrates 
the object of his mission is known; and I am persuaded, he 
will be the means of scattering very many thousand copies of 
God’s holy Word among the inhabitants of these populous 
regions.” 

But it is not only in populous regions that this explorative 
agency, followed up by an active committee, may become of 
unspeakable value, but also in outlying villages and hamlets, 
and amid agricultural populations. A grant of 30/., made to 
a small auxiliary in Kent, for colportage, has been expended 
in the course of twelve months, in two separate series of 
visits to the same district, at an interval of six months ; the 
result of the whole being more than 15,000 calls made, and 
the sale of 1725 copies of the Scriptures. This colportage 
also laid the foundation of two flourishing associations in 
neighbouring towns, which have commenced their labours 
when those of the colporteur had ceased. The colporteur of 
this auxiliary was told, in one instance, where the last four- 
pence in the house was brought forth to purchase a Testa¬ 
ment,—“ Ah, it is as good to me as a fortune of a thousand 
pounds.” Another person said,—“ I hardly know how to 
spare the money, but it is a message from the King, and I 
must not turn it from me.” On calling at a cottage, a 
woman said,—“ My mother, now lying sick upstairs, was 


486 


ADDENDA. 


brought to the Saviour’s cross by such a Testament as this : 
and it was in one of your Society’s Bibles that I, too, found 
the ‘ Pearl of great price.’ ” 

The evidence of Home colporteurs would go far to prove 
that the people warmly welcome the Bibles thus carried to 
their doors. The men are often told, “Yours is a good 
work, and God will bless it; you belong to a noble band:” 
and one colporteur often reaps the fruit of the seed sown by 
his predecessor. The following is an interesting proof of 
this, and is an anecdote which in itself is full of the Gospel. 

A cottager, who purchased a fourpenny Testament for her 
little boy, said, that last year she had done so for her little 
girl, since dead. She then, with a mother’s love, described 
the details of her illness, and added,—“ One day, she called 
me to her bedside, saying, ‘ Mother, I shall never go to 
school again, for I am going to die. I am going to Jesus, 
who bids little children come to him; and you, and father, 
and brother, can come too. Oh, it is a lovely home I am 
going to; I shall have a white robe and crown, and be ever 
with Jesus. Will you, mother, bring me my New Testa¬ 
ment ? ’ I brought it to her, but she was too weak to hold it 
herself, and bade me open it at the 18th chapter of Matthew, 
and hold it so that she could read it. There’s the place, Sir. 
It was the chapter she used most, and the paper is quite worn 
by her little fingers ; so I keep it for her sake. As I held it 
up, she said, ‘ Mother, did you hear the Lord’s words, “ That 
it is not his will that one of his little ones should perish?” 
Oh, how I wish you would kneel down and pray.’ 

“ I knelt down, but as I had never prayed since I was 
married, and then only knew the Lord’s prayer, I. could do 
nothing but cry; but she, without her prayer book, said two 
collects and the Lord’s prayer, and after stopping for a little 
time, prayed out of her own head for more than half an hour. 
Where she got the words from I did not know then, but I 
know now that it was God’s Holy Spirit who was teaching 
her to pray, as He has taught me since. She seemed to be 
speaking to some one, and she told everything that she, poor 
child, had done, that she thought was wrong. When she 
had finished she said, ‘ Oh ! mother, I see such a black mark 
on me, but Christ’s blood will wash the stains away.’ After 
awhile her father came in, and she asked him to read to her 


ALLIED ARMIES IN THE EAST. 


487 


the 14th chapter of John. He read it, and she said to him, 
‘ Father, I am going far away; I am going to Jesus, and you 
must promise me to come too. Oh! do promise me to read 
a chapter every day, and pray to Jesus to shew you the way 
to heaven through Him! Try to love Him, father, for he 
loves you, and died for us.’ She would not let go her father’s 
hand till he had promised her to read the Testament every 
day, and then, as she seemed composed, we went to bed. 

“ But we were awoke before daylight by her groans. When 
I went to her she said, ‘ Mother, Satan has been troubling 
me, he is fighting hard for my soul, but I have the victory in 
Jesus ; and I am going, I am going through the golden gates 
with Christ’s robe of righteousness on.’ She then stopped 
speaking, her lips moving as if in prayer. I said to her, 
‘Are you happy in your mind ?’ ‘ Yes,’ she answered, ‘ very 

happy. I go unto Him that hath loved us, and washed us 
from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings 
and priests.’ Then she spoke no more, and we saw that she 
had entered heaven. — More like a lovely sleep than death. 
I thought it a hard thing to lose my poor child, but now I 
thank God, for her death will, with his grace, save alive our 
souls. I cannot now do as I once did, let the Bible lie 
unopened, and go to bed always prayerless. I had a hard 
struggle with Satan for prayer: for some time I could not 
pray, but I knelt down and persevered in trying, and the 
devil, finding I resisted him, fled.” 


More than 150,000 copies of the Scriptures have been 
supplied by the British and Foreign Bible Society to the 
Allied Armies in the East, and for their sick and wounded, 
and prisoners of war. These have been distributed through 
many channels : through the Naval and Military, the Hiber¬ 
nian, and Merchant Seamen’s Bible Societies; through mili¬ 
tary chaplains, and by the hand of private individuals pro¬ 
ceeding to the Crimea and to Scutari. We are naturally 
deeply anxious to hear something of the springing of this 
seed amid the terrors of the battle field, and the after suffer¬ 
ings of the hospital. From the Rev. I. Lowndes, of Malta, 
we learn, that he has visited many of the soldiers come down 



488 


ADDENDA. 


from the seat of war, and it is heartrending to hear the 
accounts they give of the horrors they have endured, and to 
look upon their poor mutilated frames, “ eyeless, footless, ear¬ 
less, armless.” A few of them are men who had been supplied 
with New Testaments before they went: some had not ob¬ 
tained any; many, in the hurry of their transit, or in escaping 
from the carnage, had left everything behind them. Such 
have now been supplied afresh, and have received the books 
most gratefully. Mr. Bracebridge, at a Bible meeting lately 
held in Constantinople, related that a fond mother had en¬ 
treated of him by letter, particulars of the last moments of 
her son who fell in battle. To have given these would only 
have added to her anguish, but he was able to transmit to 
her one fact which spoke volumes of consolation — that when 
the young officers garments were loosened to examine his 
wounds, the Bible was found reposing on his bosom. Captain 
Benson, at the same meeting, mentioned that “ a dear friend 
of his, a British officer, collected his men round him the night 
before the battle of Alma, and read to them the 91st Psalm; 
a few hours afterwards he was no longer amidst wars and 
tumults, but in heavenly mansions, where love and peace 
reign.” Very many of the poor sufferers in the hospitals 
are disabled for life, whether for war or labour; and they 
tell more bitter stories than their own of those who fell to 
rise no more. They are visited at Scutari by a colporteur, 
selections from whose reports are as follows: “ One day I 
saw fifty-five bodies being prepared for interment, fifteen 
more lying lifeless in the hospital. The sick men appear 
perfect wrecks, and even more to be pitied than the wounded. 
There are so many to visit, that I can seldom speak to the 
same man more than once. In traversing the extensive cor¬ 
ridors leading to Miss Nightingale’s apartments, my heart 
bled to see them filled with the heroes of Alma and of Inker- 
mann, stretched on their couches pale and emaciated. The 
Society’s New Testament lay within their reach, and my eye 
caught some reading it. Miss Nightingale received me with 
kindness and affability, and was most ready to communicate 
the information required. She said the invalids under her 
care were amply supplied with New Testaments, but sadly 
required Bibles; so much so that she gave her own away. 
I promised a supply from my depot; she required seventy- 


COLPORTAGE IN FRANCE. 


489 

two. Many Romanists would accept New Testaments but 
for the prohibition of their priests. They receive the mark of 
their faith on their medical card; and the books are taken 
from them if discovered.” 

Two hundred Russian Testaments have been given to 
Russian prisoners. The evidence of a surgeon employed 
among them is, “ There are many of those Testaments here, 
and the men are often reading them, while those who are not 
able to read gather round to listen.” Many have received the 
book with starting tears of gratitude, and though generally 
rough and uncivilized, they cannot but be touched with the 
kindness thus shewn to them; they may even live to bless 
the day when they became prisoners to the English, and had 
offered to them the treasure of the divine word. 

Mr. Barker writes from Constantinople : “ Our depot here 
is full of life; colporteurs come in and out, carrying off large 
parcels of Scriptures for soldiers and sailors in the hospitals, 
and for sale about the city. Our soldiers wished to buy 
a considerable number of tenpenny 4 Pearls,’ and shilling 
4 Rubies.’ The military chaplains have written from Bala- 
klava for 1100 Bibles and 500 Testaments, as so many copies 
were lost at the battles of Alma and Inkermann. Orders are 
constantly arriving from distant missionary stations for the 
native Protestant Christians and their schools. An American 
missionary at Arabkir required 100 Turkish Testaments for 
Turks and Kurds; the latter mountain tribes being, he says, 
in a state of greater readiness to receive the Gospel, than 
even the Armenians themselveg. This is a most surprising 
and interesting feature of our work in Turkey. Boxes of 
books are continually coming in from England, Malta, Smyrna 
and Athens, and others are going out in all directions.” 


From the ROMAN CATHOLIC countries we must select 
France. Although most Frenchmen are Romanists or in¬ 
fidels, it is not the less true that the Word of God is being 
diffused amongst them, and by their own purchase. All that 
during twenty-five years has been accomplished for the ad¬ 
vancement of the kingdom of God in France, has had its 
origin in the distribution of the Scriptures. 




490 


ADDENDA. 


Of course every attempt is made by the Jesuits to deny 
the right of abandoning Popery ; the people are told, “You 
were born Roman Catholics, and Roman Catholics you must 
die.” Contempt, threats, and often violence are used; yet 
it is all but labour lost, for persecution only augments faith 
and courage. In some places the converts are turned out of 
their new places of worship, and then they meet in their 
thick forests, no weather hindering them, to read the Bible 
together, and to exhort to perseverance and to prayer. The 
pastor mentioned in p. 423 of this volume, is now excluded 
from his pulpit, but, mounted on a heap of turf in the open 
air, with his flock seated on the grass around him, he enjoys 
no less the presence and blessing of the Lord. Persecution 
has always been the weapon of the Romish church, and in 
this age of intelligence it is her weapon still. She unsparingly 
employs it, if she can, whenever Protestants feel themselves 
impelled to speak of Jesus Christ beyond the walls of their 
own chapels, and whenever they seriously set about gaining 
new disciples for the religion of the Bible. When will she 
learn that wherever attempt is made to hinder the progress of 
the Gospel, it only prospers the more; and that every act of 
enmity shewn to the circulation of the Scriptures, is only 
certain to promote their greater sale ? 

Yes, truly, colportage in France is a work triumphant over 
every obstacle. During nine months of the year 1854, nearly 
76,000 copies of the Scriptures were issued from the depot in 
Paris, 67,000 of these being sold by colporteurs, chiefly to 
Roman Catholics, being an increase of 15,000 copies even on 
the circulation of the Jubilee year; and to this effect there 
has concurred a most singular cause. In the very smallest 
of the country parishes in France, the bishops of Rome have 
prepared the people, of late, to receive a new doctrine from 
the Pope; and by dazzling illuminations of coloured lamps 
in the great cities, have called crowds to witness, and read 
in giant transparencies, that “Mary is the Mother of the 
Creator. Mary is the Queen of Heaven.” The publication of 
which dogma, with its attendant abominations, is a subject of 
reproach and sorrow even to serious Romanists. But to what 
has all this led? Actually to the purchase of New Testaments, 
to search for passages relating to the Virgin. Let this fact 
echo back to the Vatican! The Cardinals lit their million 


LA MERE LOUISE. 


491 


lamps in honour of the Virgin; but meanwhile the people 
were paying into the treasury of the Bible Society more than 
2000/. for the purchase of the lamp of God’s Word, to light 
them from the paths of error into the ways of truth. 

Instead of seventy-six colporteurs, at least a hundred are 
now to be employed in the fields of labour that are opening, 
and opening, notwithstanding the pressure on the labouring 
poor, of war prices, and other privations. The French under¬ 
stand the social principle of economising in their households; 
and in the villages they will gather together, in the long, 
cold, wet evenings, perhaps in a stable, where they can share 
the warmth with the cows and sheep ; they bring their chairs 
and stools, and some on trusses of hay and straw, will 
groupe round a large old lamp, and carry on their trades of 
sewing or basket-making, etc. A colporteur, last December, 
entered such a building, and found some thirty persons thus 
assembled, chatting about the war in the East—(for where is 
not that now talked of?)—dear bread, and the scarcity of 
money, etc. La Mdre Louise, the mistress of the stable, 
exclaimed, “ That all these things had been predicted in the 
Gospel, as a punishment for men’s sins.” And the colporteur 
asked her if she found that in her Latin mass-book? “ No,” 
said she, “ but in my French Testament, which I bought 
some years ago of a colporteur.” Then followed converse 
on the happiness of possessing a New Testament; to which 
all listened, till the “ servant of the Word” began to let the 
New Testament speak folr itself \ and invited them to follow 
the example of La Mere Louise, and buy this good book. At 
this they looked at each other, saying, “ How can we buy 
books when we want bread?” “Ask la Mere Louise,” said 
he, “ whether she repents any sacrifice she made to get this 
book.” “ Oh, no,” said she. On this, a voice cried out, 
“ Let us club together.” One, therefore, offered a sou, 
another two sous, another five sous; and so several copies of 
the Word were disposed of in this poor company. 


The Circulation of the Scriptures in the French Camps. 

This is a work in which many English Christians have 
taken an active and personal part. They provided for the 



492 


ADDENDA. 


colporteur a vehicle to hold his books, and a horse to draw 
it; and moreover, accompanied him to the scene of his 
labours. This was not prevented; for Christians in France 
remark, that the new alliance of the two nations is rapidly 
destroying old prejudice and antipathies. The Generals in 
command, on observation of the quiet demeanour of the col¬ 
porteur, have not only given him leave to pursue his work of 
selling Bibles, but also to form libraries of good books for the 
soldiers, to which are attached comfortable reading-rooms, 
where the New Testament, as in the stable of La Mere Louise, 
is “ allowed to speak for itself.” Of course, this is very 
contrary to the mind of the Jesuits; but, under God’s pro¬ 
vidence, influence has been raised up to protect it, in the 
highest quarters, and “ the cowl is not permitted to shroud 
the epaulette.” French Testaments by thousands are now 
in the hands of men beneath the walls of Sebastopol,— 
40,000 copies are named as the total distributed. Very many 
officers have bought Bibles; and coming also into contact 
with some true servants of Jesus Christ who possess them in 
the English army, what may not be the happy result ? 

A colporteur, at Scutari, is doing all that he is permitted 
to do in the hospitals occupied by the French; but the 
Sisters of Mercy hinder him in all his attempts to place 
the Testament in the hands of Romanists. In the streets, 
the French soldiers receive the Scriptures gladly. But the 
Sisters of Mercy—(they do not deserve the name, if they 
refuse the consolation of the Word of God to the sick and 
dying)—went so far as to prevent the Scriptures being given 
to the invalid Russian prisoners under their care. 


The Revivals in the Eastern Churches in Mahomedan 
Countries. 

We cannot again turn away from Turkey—tne point on 
which the eye of the politician is so earnestly fixed—before we 
have noted, with as much compression as possible, the rapid 
progress of the light which has been shed for the last few 
years among the Churches of the East. 

Turkey in Europe and Asia, contains thirty-five millions of 



REVIVALS IN THE EASTERN CHURCHES. 493 


souls, of whom upwards of twenty millions are still believers 
in the falsities of Mahomet. But 17,306 copies of the pure 
Word of God were circulated in Turkey in 1854; and these 
Scriptures are effecting a glorious work among Jews, Nesto- 
rians, and Armenians, thickly scattered amid that Turkish 
population. To this fact we have previously referred; but 
its results .are becoming daily more manifest. It is now 
delightful to spend a Sabbath among the Nestorian missi¬ 
onaries, on Mount Seir (see p. 431), where they preach to 
large congregations, and superintend schools, in which adults, 
male and female, are not only learning to read, but making 
rapid progress in the knowledge of the Bible. It is a most 
significant fact to those acquainted with the down-trodden 
and miserable condition of women in the East, that fifty of 
them in one village should be learning to read. The change 
in the countenances of many is obvious; intelligence and 
modesty have taken the place of vulgarity, and they might 
be selected from a hundred others, as those who can read the 
Bible. 

The American missionaries and their pupil-teachers, also 
spread over the plain of Ooroomiah to the scattered villages; 
holding Sabbath-schools and preaching, and visiting those 
who have formerly been pupils, and are now diffusing among 
their relatives the light of life. During summer, the services 
are held in groves adjoining the churches,—an arrangement 
much to be preferred for space and coolness. Here two 
hundred people at a time are seen bending over their books. 
On the trees are suspended maps of Palestine, for the use of 
students of the Gospels. As night draws on, the teachers 
reassemble at Mount Seir, and recount their day’s labours, 
on the terraced roof of the mission-house, beneath the star- 
spangled sky. They are turning many to righteousness; and 
God grant that they may “ shine as the stars,” as is pro¬ 
mised, “ for ever and ever.” 

In the Armenian Church there is a remarkable native 
teacher, whom the missionaries name “ Kevork,” or “ the 
Apostle to the Gentiles.” He resides in a village near 
Arabkir; and four years ago he was driven from it, because 
he sought to preach to the villagers the Gospel of Christ. He 
was beaten and stoned; and fled for his life to the mountains, 
dwelling for weeks alone amid caves and rocks, and sub- 


494 


ADDENDA. 


sisting on roots and herbs. Here he diligently read his New 
Testament, and wept and prayed till he thought—“ perhaps 
they will listen nowthen down he would go to his village, 
bear all their cruelties afresh, and again be driven back to 
weep and pray. Thus it continued for many months, till it 
seemed to him that his own people were determined not to 
receive Christ; and then he said, “ Lo, I turn to the Gen¬ 
tiles.” He has ever since been travelling over the mountains, 
preaching to Turks, Kurds, and Armenians, whoever will 
hear. And many do hear. He has been the means of dif¬ 
fusing a vast amount of light in that wild district; he waters 
his way with his tears, and yet often makes it vocal with 
praise and prayer. A large number of the robber Kurds have 
listened to him, and embraced the truth. These are the 
Kurds that Mr. Barker, of Constantinople, mentions, as so 
anxious for the Scriptures. 

“ Would that I could cause you to realize,” says the mis¬ 
sionary, Mr. Clark, “ Kevork’s deep, living spirituality,—the 
way in which he is filled with Christ. It would seem as 
though, in the mountains, he had conversed with God face to 
face: his whole soul is on fire, when, with tears running 
down his dark sunburnt Arab cheek, he most eloquently 
speaks of a Saviour’s love.” 

A short time since, this Kevork—a kind of Christian 
Schamyl—preached six days in succession to Turks, Kurds, 
and Armenians, in Malatia, without opposition; indeed, he 
went there at the express invitation of the Judge of the city, 
and was a part of the time the guest of the Governor. He 
exposed the absurdities of the old Armenian Church, and 
pressed upon them Christ Jesus. The Armenians were 
urgent for him to remain with them there, but “ he has a wider 
mission at present.” 

Mingled with the Nestorians and Armenians in Turkey, 
are many members of the apostate Western churches,—the 
Church of Rome and the Greek Church, which alike resolved 
to hide God’s Word from the people, and have conspired to 
do so for hundreds of years. Upon these, however, the Pro¬ 
testant revivals are acting reflectively ; and the Armenians, 
being especially the travelling merchants of the world, are 
diffusing, and will diffuse, their new principles all over the 
East. They are scattered through India; they abound at 


HEATHEN COUNTRIES. 


495 


Jerusalem, Constantinople, and at St. Petersburgh ; they are 
raising the spirit of enquiry concerning the Scriptures, not 
only among Romanists and Greeks, but even among the 
Mahomedans. There is scarcely a considerable town in 
Turkey, in which there is not now the nucleus of a Protes¬ 
tant communion. “ The Scriptures are more read even by 
Turks,” says Mr. Barker, “ than we commonly suppose. I 
was at our depot, when a respectable Turk, accompanied by 
two servants, called there for a Bible, which Chourchid 
Pacha, a French general in the Sultan’s service, had the day 
before selected. He spoke very good French. And whilst 
he examined the Bible, I entered into conversation with him, 
when he suddenly looked me in the face, and said, ‘lama 
Turk; nevertheless, I continually read the Bible.’ He then 
turned round and departed. There may be many such 
Turks.” 

Some missionaries of the Scotch Churcii nave Jewish 
schools at the Golden Horn and at Galata, each attended by 
upwards of a hundred boys and girls. Here the objections 
of the Jews against Christ as the Messiah, are refuted both 
from the Old and New Testaments. Some of the Jewish 
parents took their children away from these schools, but sent 
them back again. 

Turkish oppression is materially softened at present. 
Christians at Broossa were even permitted to build their 
church near the mosque; and a passer-by asking, “ How is 
this?” was answered, “ It is no harm. They are Protes¬ 
tants; ours is a jami (or meeting-place), and theirs is a 
‘ jami ’ too.” He meant, that it was not an idol temple, like 
the Greek churches, but simply a place for prayer. This 
expression from a Turk may be regarded as a sign of the 
times. 


Heathen Countries. 

And what of India since the year of Jubilee ? 5000£. of 

the Jubilee Fund has been voted for Scripture distribution 
among that vast population, intrusted by Divine Providence 
to British rule; and the friends of the Bible Society earnestly 
and prayerfully await opportunities, judiciously to make fur¬ 
ther grants, as the demands for their help shall arise. 



496 


ADDENDA. 


Marvellous changes are taking place in the social condition 
of the people, under the viceroyalty of the Marquis of Dal- 
housie. “ In no year,” says the Friend of India, “ have we 
taken such giant strides as in that which has just closed. It 
is likely to stand forth in our Indian annals as the year of 
progress. The whole fabric of European empire in India, it 
must be remembered, has only a hundred years' history. In 
1755, the extent of British jurisdiction there was about three 
miles in length by one in breadth. In 1855, within a ter¬ 
ritory of 1,000,000 square miles, all bow to the decisions of 
our Governor-General.” The Anglo-Saxon power is seated 
on the ancient Mogul throne, and sways as many millions as 
obey the fiat of the Russian Czar, and as the population of 
America added to their numbers. To what purpose can such 
wealth of power have been given us, but that we should bear 
to those sunny climes the Revelation from on High ? 

Romanism is active in India. It has eight or nine hundred 
bishops and priests there, busied in elevating among the 
Heathen the crucifix of its “ Heathenized Christianity.” But 
Romanism is there without the Bible. Portugal and France 
have claimed dominion in India, but they would not have 
given her the Bible. The rule over her native princes was re¬ 
served for England,—to that “ small island of a distant sea,” 
because within her borders sprung up the fountain, the foun¬ 
tain of the Words of life, “ for all the world” {see p. 228). 

“ Among all the Mahratta missions,” says the American 
press, “ there are signs of progress. Every fresh change is 
working out the overthrow of superstition, and preparing the 
way of the Lord. Railroads and electric telegraphs are ex¬ 
tending their lines in every direction; the government is open¬ 
ing roads and digging canals for irrigation. The desire for 
education is increasing among the natives. In regard to 
female education the change in their sentiments is amazing: 
the first class natives now subscribe to schools, and send 
their own daughters. The press is influential, and a mission 
journal, the Divyanodaya, has a circulation surpassing all 
other papers. Its statements of the circulation of the Scrip¬ 
tures by Colporteurs are of peculiar interest. The mission¬ 
aries write, ‘ that every time they return from their tours, 
they feel that far more ought to be done for India in this 
way.'" India wants more colporteurs to “let the New 


PROGRESS IN INDIA. 


497 

Testament speak for itself,” as in the stable of La Mere 
Louise. The supply of Scriptures for all the millions of 
India is not yet 3,000,000. The laborious, and overtasked 
Protestant missionaries, not yet numbering 500, are calling 
for more labourers in their wide field, as well they may. 
They are mourning, also, that they have hitherto gathered 
converts by units rather than by hundreds. They are “ watch¬ 
ing wearily for the morning.” They believe in the power of 
their message, but at present they see not the fruit. Mean¬ 
time, we may say of India, comparatively with the rest of the 
world, it is still the stronghold of idolatry, for the seed is yet 
in the garner, the sword is still in the scabbard—the “seed 
of the word,” and the “sword of the Spirit,” which (again) is 
the Word of God. Why should not the fainting strength of 
the missionaries apply itself fully to sowing the seed broad¬ 
cast, and to unsheathing the sword, as it has never yet been 
unsheathed ? As Luther said, “ Let the word run through the 
length and breadth of the land ! ” And will not God honour 
his own word, and “magnify it” above all human words? 
From that seed there will spring a harvest of many souls. 
Many a native Kevork, a fit messenger to his brethren, who 
shall yet further perfect translations and expound the Word, 
and shew forth Jesus Christ. 

There is everything that is cheering in the present political 
aspect of Indian affairs. “Greater government reforms, and 
government works have been accomplished in one year than 
could have been hoped for in ten. Dr. O’Shaughnessy began 
his telegraphic operations in November, 1853, and in less than 
six months a message was sent to the Governor-general in 
Calcutta from Agra, a distance of more than 800 miles, in 
two hours. Bombay, Lahore, and Madras, were united to 
this line before the close of the year. When we reflect on 
the vast distance to which the rods have been carried, often 
across unfordable rivers, or through dense jungles, and on 
the difficulty of training 200 rough and untutored hands to 
signal, the progress and success of the line is equally marvel¬ 
lous. London intelligence of the 25th of one month is now 
received at Calcutta on the 21st of the next month, and at all 
the other capitals in three hours more.” Oh! that the words 
of life may soon travel through India with the swiftness of 
a telegraphic message. 


33 


498 


ADDENDA. 


“Next in the order of events, comes the opening of the 
first section of the great Railway that is to connect Calcutta 
with Lahore. At Bombay has sounded the first railway 
whistle in India. The inauguration of the Calcutta and 
Delhi railway took place with great pomp, in presence of the 
Governor-general, the Judges, and influential inhabitants. 
The ceremonies commenced with the Bishop’s reading a 
series of Scripture passages; among others, ‘ Cast ye up, 
cast ye up, prepare the way.’ The successive stations were 
crowded with dense masses of the native population, which 
had poured forth from town and hamlet to watch the wheels 
of the chariot of fire — so far superior to the car of Indra in 
the blessings which it will confer. It will probably do more 
for India than has been done for 2000 years. It is already 
highly popular; on the Bengal line 1000 passengers travel 
daily, and at less than half the ordinary charge in England.” 

During the past year, the government has bestowed on 
India the immense benefit of a low uniform rate of postage, 
extending to pamphlets and hooks. The Educational Bill, also, 
will lay a broad foundation for a liberal system of national 
education. In addition to ordinary Schools, Universities 
and Colleges are to be established, and who will not hail for 
India the introduction of a system which will elevate the 
moral and mental condition of the people, and prepare the 
way for a wide diffusion of the Word of Life ? 

These schools alone will occasion a vast call for the Scrip¬ 
tures, which will thus be introduced by the children to their 
homes. Their parents are often too poor to buy books, and 
large gifts will therefore be necessary. If such is the move¬ 
ment on the face of society in India, we cannot but watch 
with equal interest the surging of the waves of popular 
tumult in 


China. 

Protestant missionaries in China are still looking with pro¬ 
found interest upon the proceedings of the Insurgents, which 
have already done so much to destroy the influence of the old 
superstitions. A gentleman writing from Hong Kong, under 
date February, 1855, remarks: “ We have heard of late very 
little news from Nanking. The Jesuits hate the movement, 


THE MOVEMENT IN CHINA. 


499 


and magnify every blot in the character and conduct of the 
revolutionary leaders. To all appearance the Manchoo Tar¬ 
tar dynasty must fall. The sceptre has all but passed from 
their hands in this neighbourhood, and vast numbers of inde¬ 
pendent rebels threaten Canton, which may any day become 
their own. The French admiral at Shanghae has joined the 
imperialists in attacking the local Triad rebels in the city. 
But all these things will tell against the Romanists, if the 
rebellion succeeds. This vast empire is in course of disrup¬ 
tion and convulsion; and when the country will again be 
quiet, and Christian missions be carried on under a settled 
government, it is difficult to predict. 

“ I believe that the alternative is likely to be between 
anarchy and the empire of Tae-ping-wang. Under the salu¬ 
tary influence of foreign governments and missionaries, and 
with the recognition and publication of the "Word of God, 
great results would soon follow. 

“ The Gospels of St. Luke, St. John, with the Book of Acts, 
and the Epistle to the Romans, in Loochooan Japanese, have 
been printed here, and supplies have been sent to the Rev. Mr. 
Moreton, at Loochoo, for the use of the Naval Mission.” Means 
time the Chinese Testaments, for which Britain has poured 
forth her willing offerings, are being printed at six or more 
different places, and colporteurs are diligently sought to aid in 
their circulation. Frequent excursions are made by the mis¬ 
sionaries, and important changes seem near at hand. 

In the edition of the Scriptures which the Insurgents are 
publishing, Genesis is called vol. i., Exodus vol. ii. of the Old 
Testament; Matthew is called vol. i. of the New Testament. 
It would seem to be their intention to publish the whole 
Bible under the imperial sanction. At Fuhchou the Gospel is 
preached regularly. A letter has been received from this place 
from the Rev. W. Welton, on the desirableness of employing 
native colporteurs to go into the interior for the circulation of 
the Chinese Scriptures —two such are already engaged. He 
speaks hopefully of the aspect of affairs in China. A letter, 
also, from Mr. Hirschberg, a medical missionary at Amoy, 
says, “ There is evidently a great awakening here and in the 
neighbourhood. Some bring their Penates and ancestral 
tablets and deliver them up to the missionaries, desiring to 
serve God alone ; others, the poorest of the poor, are furnish- 


.500 


ADDENDA. 


ing a room with benches, pulpit, etc., that they may have a 
suitable place to offer to the preacher of the Gospel. Fathers 
teach their children, and sons their parents, the way of life 
The missionaries of all denominations are much engaged in 
receiving applicants and examining enquirers ; and, oh ! that 
jit may not cease till the whole city, yea, the whole of China, 
be given to the Lord, and unto the Son for his inheritance.” 


The total issues of Scriptures from the British and Foreign 
Bible Society for the year 1854-5, exceed by 80,000 the 
issues of the past year, and by nearly 10,000 the issues of any 
year during their marvellous history. The total being one 
million four hundred and fifty thousand, eight hundred and 
twenty-six ! 

During the same period, the Receipts of the Society 
amounted to £124,478 95. 3d., and of this noble sum 
£64,878 7s. 3d:, were contributed for the general purposes 
of the Society. 


Thus the dawn seems breaking, and the Sun of righteous¬ 
ness arising; and may the heathen world, ere long, make larger 
claim on the funds of the Jubilee year! “He that is holy, 
and he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that 
openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man 
openeth,” says to his Church, “ Behold, I have set before thee 
an open door, and no man can shut it;” and may his Church 
“ keep his word, and not deny his name.” 





INDEX 


Aaron, death of, 27. 

Abdallah, his conversion and mar¬ 
tyrdom, 339. 

Abyssinian Church, 105, 309, 447. 

Ada Bazar, 441. 

Advent of our Lord, 78. 

Africa, 247; South Africa, 415. 

Agents, foreign, of Bible Society ,464. 

Ages without the Bible, 2 

Alaric, king of the Goths, 98. 

Aldersey, Miss, missionary to Chi¬ 
na, 395. 

Aleppo, 295, 328, 440. 

Ali Bey, 325. 

Alphabets: Arabic, 145; Armenian, 
143; Coptic, 141; Erse or Irish, 
146; Ethiopic, 144; Georgian, 
145; Gothic, 142; Persian, 143; 
Sclavonian, 146. 

Amalek, 18, 58. 

America, 248, 288, 478. 

Amharic Testament, 310; Amha- 
ric Bible, 190. 

Anakim, the tall, 25,34. 

Anecdotes: African woman, 346; 
Aged Hindoo, 378; Bible-bees, 
264; Bible seized by Romish 
priests, 426; blind French girl, 
196; Bishop Corrie, 374; Rev. 
Andrew Brandram, 463; Brah- 
minical contempt, 376; child 
and infidel, 262; filial affection, 
351; gun bought with Bible 
money, 265; Highland girl, 467; 
Hindoo rajah, 376; Irish wea¬ 
ver, 270; Jewish conversion, 
152: Romish priest, 314; sub¬ 
scriber blessed, 263; Tahitians 
and Romish priest, 410; Welsh 


girl who had no Bible, 226; 
Welsh peasants, 226. 

Anglesea or Mona, 71, 84; aston¬ 
ishing contributions of, 466. 

Antiochus Epiphanes, 64. 

Apocryphal books, 62, 206; not 
bound up with the Society’s 
Bibles, 334; their omission ob¬ 
jected to by Romanists, 333. 

Apollo, oracle of, concerning Chris¬ 
tianity. 85. 

Apostles, their martyrdom, 83. 

Appeal, closing, 480. 

Arabia, 12; land where St. Paul 
commenced his ministry, 335. 

Arabic, where spoken, 335; the 
language of the Koran, 335; 
New Testament, 336; printed 
at Calcutta, 336; new version 
prepared, 335. 

Arabs, 12, 334, 339. 

Archbishop of Canterbury’s ser¬ 
mon, 161. 

Argyll's, Duke of, speech, 316. 

Aristobulus of Judea, 66, 72. 

Armenian Bible, 307,308. 

Armenian Church, 103, 306, 437. 

Armenians, American missions to, 
308, 437; Bible venerated by, 
438; gospel-readers, 439. 

Arrow-headed writing, 54. 

Askew, Ann, 165. 

Asselin, Mons., French consul in 
Egypt, 190, 310. 

Asser, tutor to King Alfred, 114. 

Assyria, fountain restored in, 430. 

Augustine, bishop of Hippo. 112. 

Augustine, bishop of Rome, his mis¬ 
sion to England, 112. 




502 


INDEX. 


Australia, 405. 

Austria, 320, 417. 

Authorised English version, 180. 

Autograph Deuteronomy, 30. 

Auxiliary at Reading, 256. 

Babylon, 59. 

Bagster’s Bible of Every Land, 171. 

Bangor-Iscoed, 112. 

Banian tree, 254. 

Barker, Mr. B., 327. 

Beckwith, Major-general, 449. 

Bede, the Venerable, 113, 267. 

Belgium, 320, 424. 

Bexley, Lord, 462. 

Bible: perils of a Bible agent, 329: 
Bible House, 132, 179; need of, 
in Ireland, 238; price of, in 
Wiclif’s time, 133; distribution 
among Roman Catholics, 313; 
in Russia, 322; Italian, 198; 
Breton, 188: Malagassy, 198; 
Chinese, 199; Swedish, Portu¬ 
guese, French, Russian, Am- 
haric, Tahitian, Malay, Eng¬ 
lish Family Bibles, Diamond, 
Pearl, and Ruby Bibles, 198: 
unbound, 200 ; the Bishops* 
Bible, 180; Bible translations 
in the 16th century, 140; Bible, 
standard of appeal, 470; Bible 
binding, 217; folding, 213; rol¬ 
ling, collating, sewing, re-col¬ 
lating, pressing, cutting, gilding, 
burnishing, sprinkling, marb¬ 
ling, rounding, 216 ; Bibles ne¬ 
ver issued by the Society un¬ 
bound, 218. 

Bible Society: authorised in Rus¬ 
sia, 322; death of friends of, 
349; its origin, 221; its objects 
and constitution, 234; its prin¬ 
ciples of union, 231; present 
free income of, 397; its need of 
support, 479 

Bilney the martyr, 149. 

Blackfriars’, Church and Monas¬ 
tery of, 132. 

Black-pool, 469. 

Blind, Bible for the, 195. 

Book, the, and its circulation, 2; 
becomes the guide, 89. 

Books of New Testament, 79. 

Borrow, Mr. G\, 398. 

Bough ton, Lady Jane, 131. 

Boulogne, matelots de, 366. 

Bradby, John, 131. 

Brandram, Rev. Andrew. 463. 


Bran, the father of Caractacus, at 
Rome with St. Paul, 84, 107. 

Brittany, 107, 108,188. 

British Church, 106,110,112. 

British Museum, 5, 53. 

Britons, Ancient, 67. 

Browne, Rev. Gf., 351. 

Buchanan, Dr., 15, 191, 247,304,305. 

Buenos Ayres, 332. 

Bullom, King of, 337. 

Burckhardt, 295-297. 

Buriat Mongol missions, 325, 398. 

Burning the Bible at Paul’s-cross, 
159,161. 

Caesar, 67. 

Calmuc gospel, 324. 

Cambridge, search for Bibles at, 
157. 

Campbell, Rev. J., in South Africa, 
341. 

Canaanites, 33. 

Canon, 47, 61; of Scripture, 61. 

Captivity and return of Judah, 47. 

Cardinal Wolsey, 132,159, 163. 

Carey, Dr., his death, 185. 

Celtic nations, 67. 

Charles, Rev. T., of Bala, 222-229, 
237, 238. 

China, 385; tablet of Se-gnan-foo, 
385; Nestorian Missions in, 
385; Chinese manuscript, 386, 
246 ; Dr. Morrison’s mission to, 
386; his Chinese dictionary, 
386; Tsae-ako, his first convert, 
387; Dr. Milne, 387; Leang-a- 
fah, first Chinese Evangelist, 
his tract, 388; distribution of, 
and persecution, 388; the re¬ 
bellion, 389; Sew-tseuen, its 
leader, his writings and opi¬ 
nions, 390; his history, 391; 
vast idol temple in China, 392; 
lucky days expunged from the 
almanac, 392; vast population 
of, 396; scarcity of food in, 
396; Protestant missionaries in, 
395 ; Bible in China, 395. 

Chinese Bible, 185, 387.* 

Chinese hatred of images, 391; ac¬ 
knowledge all men as brethren, 
392; possess the first twenty- 
seven chapters of Genesis, 392; 
need the New Testament, 392; 
the million copies, 392; their 
Great Wall, 392; their simple 
mode of printing, 392 ; generals 
of the insurgent army, 394; the 



INDEX. 


503 


Scriptures, Society’s grants for, . 
400; portions of, distributed, 
and where, 400. 

Christian Knowledge Society, 224, 
227, 233,258-261,335; in Dublin, 
271. 

Church of the Book, 24, 75, 76, 89, 
93 98, 112, 313, 359. 

Churches founded in consequence 
of circulation of word of God, 
141, 423. 

Circle ofdoomed countries: N ineveh, 
51; Jerusalem, 55; Tyre, 57; Pe¬ 
tra* 57; Babylon, 59; Egypt, 59. 

Claude of Turin, 115. 

Clugni, 135. 

Cobham, Lord, 131. 

Cochloeus, 152. 

Cockle, Mr., 400. 

Coffin, the oldest, 5. 

Collectors, Bible, 474. 

Colonies, British, 478. 

Committee-rooms in Bible House, 
192; case of Bibles in the, 193 ; 
Mr. Wyld’s map, 194; portrait 
of Tyndal, 194; other portraits, 
197. 

Colportage on the continent, 352; 
at Manchester, 474. 

Colporteur, his work, 357; at Rad¬ 
nor, 357; at Lutterworth, 471. 

Colporteurs: Yaudois, 117, 139, 
239; in France, 353, 356; in 
the Highlands and Islands of 
Scotland, 467; in Sweden, 459 ; 
in Holland, 456; in Belgium, 
427; in India, 380. 

Columba, 108,110. 

Constantine, the Armenian, 103. 

Constantine, the Emperor, 94. 

Constantinople, missionaries at, 
416 ; Jubilee meeting at, 444. 

Continent, state of, 460, 461. 

Coptic Church, 337, 445; Bible, 
338, 446. 

Council, the earthquake, 125; of 
Nice, 95: of Toulouse, 127. 

Courtenay, Archbishop, 125. 

Coverdale’s Bible, 179. 

Crystal Palace, 193. 

Cyril, the child-martyr, 90. 

Cyrus, 48. 

Dajack9 of Borneo, 407. 

Dalaber, Anthony, 155. 

Daniel, 47; the ‘ f four beasts,” 63; 
the “ two pictures,” 62. 

Dark ages, 116. 


David, 38; David’s Bible, 39. 
Deluge, 3; Job’s allusions to, 14. 
Denmark, 287, 459. 

Derbecq, the king of colporteurs, 
354. 

Diez, Baron von, 325. 

Difficulty of translation, 342. 
Dioclesian persecution, 92; medals, 
92. 

Doom-rings, 71. 

Douay Bible, 186. 

Dress of Yirgin Mary at Rome, 398. 
Druidical remains, 70. 

Druids, Hebrew origin of the, 68. 
Dutch Bibles, scarcity of, 273; colo¬ 
nists in India, 306. 

Ebal, 35. 

Early bishops, 88. 

Edward VI., 180. 

Egypt, 59. 

Egypt, ancient, rise of its idola- 

Englarffi, 5 255, 462. 

English Bible, 148. 

Erasmus, 149. 

Essenes, 74. 

Esther, 60. 

Ethelbert’s temple to Diana, 158. 
Ethiopic New Testament, 310; 

manuscript Bible, 180. 

Ewald, Rev. Mr» 451. 

Exode of Israel from Egypt, 17. 
Ezekiel, 47. 

Ezra’s ministry, 48; law re-deli¬ 
vered by, 49. 

Fable, by Mr. Dealtry, 259 
Fee-jee Isles, 413. 

Felix Neff, 448. 

Fire-works, money intended for 

S ven to send Testaments to 
hina, 473. 

First century, 80. 

Foster’s, Rev. John, letter to Mr. 
Hughes, 351. 

France, gift of Yaudois Church to, 
138; want of Scriptures in, 
239-244; Jews in, 292; no 
French Bible in Paris, 318; 
present Bible circulation in, 
421, 422. 

Friars, black, white, and grey, 126. 
Frontispiece, description of, 164. 
Fryth, John, the martyr, 149,156. 

Galitzin, Prince, speech o£ 322. 
Garrett, Thomas, 155. 


4 



504 


INDEX. 


Gaussen’s, Professor, opinions, 173, 
192, 

Geneva Bible, 180. 

Gerizim, 35. 

Germany, religious state of, 274; 
success of Bible Society in, 275; 
present state of, 457. 

Ghizeh, pyramid of, 4. 

Gilly, Dr., 101, 449. 

Gobat, Bishop, 190, 311. 

Golden shoes and scarlet gloves, 
157, 159. 

Gospel of Luke, in Gipsey lan¬ 
guage, 420. 

Gospels in Buriat Mongol, 323. 

Gospels, when written,. 87. 

Graydon, Lieutenant, 420. 

Great Britain, her dominions, 250. 

Greece, 331, 477. 

Greek Church, 103; philosophers, 
72; Testament of Erasmus, 
134. 

Gurney, Mr., on the moral state of 
the continent, 429. 

Gutzlaff’s, Dr., colporteurs in Chi¬ 
na, 400. 

Heathen countries, 339, 372. 

Hebrew, ancient, specimen of, 14; 
manuscripts, 16; New Testa¬ 
ment, 299. 

Hebron or Arba, 35. 

Henderson, Mr., 284, 286. 

Henry VIII.. 162,163, 166,168, 179. 

Heresies, earliest, 87, 89. 

Heresy, meaning of the word, 89. 

Herod, 72. 

Hieroglyphics, 7; balance-scene in, 

10 . 

Highlanders’ subscription, 407. 

Highland girl, her choice, 467. 

History-lessons, a child’s notion 
of; 317. 

Holland, 273, 455. 

Horeb, mount, 16. 

Hosea, the prophet, 50. 

Hughes, Bev. Joseph, 233,349. 

Huguenots, 123,422. 

Iceland, education in, 283; Mr. 
Henderson’s visit to, 286; scar¬ 
city of Bibles in, 287. 

Ignatius, 88. 

Ignorance, general, 114,116. 

Income of Bible Society, 466. 

Indulgences, 130. 

Infidel publications, 370, 371. 

Innocent III.. 121. 


Inquisition, 121. 

Inscriptions: Egyptian, 5; Sinai- 
tic, 19. 

Inspired persons, 86. 

Iona, 68,107,109, 111, 113,136. 

Ireland: destitution of Scriptures 
in, and supply, 269 475; schools 
in, 476. 

Irish New Testament, 147; the 
peasantry desire the Scrip¬ 
tures, 270. 

Ishmael, 58. 

Israel and Judah, 39. 

Israelites, bondage of, 11; captivity 
of Judah, 47; entrance into 
Canaan, 33; murmurings of, 
26; seven sins of, 23; six servi¬ 
tudes of, 37; ten tribes of, 43; 
wanderings of, 17. 

India, 372; its population, 373; the 
Bible there, 374: Bishop Cor- 
rie in, 374; Bibles translated 
for, 374; Calcutta Bible Asso¬ 
ciation, 375; missionary tours, 
377; American mission, 378 ; 
Baptist mission, 185, 373, 381; 
Church of England mission, 
380; London mission, 378; 
German mission, 377; Dr. Bu¬ 
chanan, 379; anecdote of Pran- 
kbsen Singh, 378; Madras Bi¬ 
ble Association, 379; new desire 
of natives for Scriptures, 381; 
grant for colportage, 381; 
learned native convert, 382; 
“ village of learners ” from Ben¬ 
gali New Testament, 383; devil- 
worship, 384; copies circulated 
since 1804, 384. 

Jannaeus, 66. 

Japan, no Bible for, 401: Jesuits in, 
401; enmity to Christianity, 401. 

Japanese vessel, wreck of, 402. 

Javanese translation, 456. 

Jebel Mousa, 22. » 

Jehoiakim, burial of, 47. 

Jersey, destitution of Bibles in, 358; 
letter from, 358; grants of Bibles 
to, 358; Bible-collector in, 359; 
duty of Jersey towards France, 
361. 

Jerusalem, destruction of, 85. 

Jesuit, accusation by, 428. 

Jewish converts persecuted by Jews, 
300; rabbi at Aleppo, 295. 

Job, the book of, 13. 



INDEX. 


505 


Jews: their persecutions, 291; their 
numbers, 294; white and black, 
306; ignorant of their own pro¬ 
phets, 452. 

Jobaritae, an Arab tribe, 13. 

John the Baptist, 78. 

Joshua, 33-35. 

Josiah, 30. 

Jubilee review, 372. 

Jubilees and Sabbaths, 477. 

Jubilee Year, 355. 

Judah’s idolatry, 56, 60. 

Judas Maccabeus, 65. 

Judea added to Roman empire, 66. 

Judges, book of, 36. 

Juvenile associations, 363; proceeds 
of, 363; results hoped for, 364. 

Karaite Jews, 297. 

Kamak, temple of, 6, 40, 59. 

Kieffer, Professor, 318. 

King Alfred, 114. 

Kings of Israel, 38; all wicked, 51. 

Knill, Rev. R., 399. 

Koran, no society for distribution 
of, 334, 445; specimen of, 94. 

Kurds, Scriptures amongst, 442. 

Ladies’ associations, 358. 

Last Supper, 82. 

Law in the desert, 28; under the 
judges, 37; to be copied by Le- 
vites, 28; giving of the, 21; to 
be written by the kings of Israel, 
38. 

Layard,Mr., his discoveries, 53,327; 
his opinions, 434. 

Leander Von Ess, 31/. 

Leicester abbey, 163. 

Letter, encyclical, of Pope Leo XII., 
427. 

Levite, 28. 

Lights upon the letter, 192. 

Lillingston’s colporteurs, 467. 

Liverpool town-mission, 467. 

London, ancient, 84. 

Loochoo Islands, 403; naval mis¬ 
sion at, 403; difficulties, 404; 
translation of Scriptures, 404. 

Lord’s Prayer in all languages, 186. 

Luther, 167; his own German Bible 
in the British Museum, 182,183; 
his wish, 468; his work of trans¬ 
lation, 468. 

Lutterworth church, 126; colpor¬ 
teur, 471. 

Luzema, vows o£ 122. 

Lyons, early martyrs at 68. 


Maccabees, 64. 

Madagascar, 198. 

Mahomedan countries, 334. 

Mahomedanism, rise of, 94. 

Mahomedans less prejudiced than 
formerly, 416. 

Mahomet Ramah, ] 84. 

Malaysia, Borneo, 406. 

Malta Bible Society, 337. 

Manchester in 1846, 469. 

Mangaia, South Seas, “the new 
book of Job,” 412; popery re¬ 
jected in, 413. 

Mankind, dispersion of. 4. 

Mantchoo type forwarded to China, 
400. 

Manuscript library in Bible House, 
188. 

Manuscript Nestorian Bible, 189; 
writers, 136: Breton Bible, 188 : 
Alexandrine, 100; of the Bible, 
cost of in the eleventh century, 
119; Chinese, in British Mu¬ 
seum, 246; Ethiopic Scriptures, 
189. 

Marinus the martyr, 91. 

Martyn, Rev. Henry, his Arabic 
New Testament, 335. 

Martyrs, 198; Lollards, 131. 

Mendicant mars, 125. 

Methuselah, 3. 

Millard, Mr. E., 458. 

Miracles, age of, 17. 

Missionary letters on translation, 
341. 

Moffat, Rev. R., 346; his New Tes¬ 
tament in Sechuana, 348; his 
feelings, 415. 

Mohawk translation, 289. 

Monasteries, rise of, 97; use of, 135. 

Monastery of black-friars, 132. 

Monmouth, Humphrey, 152. 

More, Sir Thomas, 153, 

Morrison, Dr., 246, 386, 388. 

Moses, his training, 11; his death, 
31. 

Motives for renewed exertion, 481. 

Mount Hor, 27. 

Mykerinus, King, 4, 5. 

Nantes, edict of, its revocation, 240. 

Nazareth, reading of the Scriptures 
at, 454. 

Nebo, 30. 

Nebuchadnezzar, 50; his dream, 63. 

Negro, remark of, 477. 

Nero’s troublesome coat, 84. 

Nestorius, 101. 




506 


INDEX. 


Nestorians, 303; papists among, 
434; Dr. Layard’s sketch of, 
435 ; Beder Khan Bey’s massa¬ 
cre of, 435; diggers at Nineveh, 
436; Chinese relics amongst, 
436; Bev. D. Stoddard’s ac¬ 
count of, 431. 

Nestorian Church, 102, 308, 401; 
first missionaries, 102; its te¬ 
nets, its liberality, 432; its ma¬ 
nuscripts, 433; influence of 
holy Scripture upon Nestori¬ 
ans, 433. 

New Testament, gradual circulation 
of, 88; copy of, found in the 
possession of a Patagonian 
chieftain, 332. 

New Zealand, 414. 

Nicomedia, 440 ; church at, 92, 438. 

Nineveh, 51, 55. 

Nisroch, 55. 

Norway, 282, 459. 

Number of Bibles at different pe¬ 
riods, 172. 

Nuremberg, Bible Society at, 69. 

Obelisk at Nineveh, 54. 

Oberlin, 242; desire after the Bible 
in France, 314. 

Oberlin, Henry, 244. 

Oddur, his translation of the Scrip¬ 
tures into Icelandic, 284; prayer 
of, 284. 

Old books of stone, 7, 40, 52. 

Old St. Paul’s cathedral, 157. 

Old Testament, its writers, 15. 

Ollas, Indian, 305. 

Owen, Rev. John, 230, 232; his 
visit to Oberlin’s parish, 244; 
death of, 268. 

Oxford, search for Bibles at, 156. 

Pagan persecutions, 83. 

Pali version, 184. 

Papacy, progress of, 96. 

Papyrus rolls, 15. 

Paris, an effort to spread the gos¬ 
pel there, 318. 

Patagonian chieftain, 332. 

Paternoster-row, apple orchards in, 
158. 

Paterson, Rev. J., 284. 

Patrick, St., or Succat, 108. 

Paulicians, 103. 

Paul’s Cathedral, Old St., 157; cross, 
160; crypt of, 164. 

Pearce, Mr. Nathaniel, 309. 

Pelagius, 107. 


Penance, 130. 

Pentateuch, 15. 

Persecution, a blessing to Chris¬ 
tians, 89, 156; Domitian, 85; of 
Jewish converts, by Jews, 300. 

Persian Testament, 183, 184; Scrip¬ 
tures, 189. 

Petra, 57. 

Pharaoh, meaning of the name, 4. 

Pharisees, traditions of the, 76. 

Pinkerton, Dr., 299, 326. 

“ Pinking the world,” 364. 

Polyglots, 181. 

Pompey, 66. 

Pratt, Rev. Josiah, 231. 

Prayer of nuns, 139. 

Printing, 133; anger of the monks 
at, 134; press, 137; early ages 
of, 201; division of labour in, 
202; machine, 208; presses at 
Oxford, 201; at Shacklewell, 
201; hydraulic press, 211; paper, 
14; process in making, 211. 

Prisoners in salt-fish cellar, 156. 

Prophets, rolls of, 42; table of, 41, 
44. 

Protestant churches, 440; countries, 
455; doctrine, 109. 

Protestantism, fall of England’s, 

112 . 

Protestants, early, 101. 

Protests, early, 115. 

Psalm, the Bible, 39. 

Psalms, Ethiopic versions of the 
book of, 309. 

Prussia, 277. 

Pyramids, size of, 4. 

Rabbins, 76. 

Rarotongan Scriptures, 411. 

Redcliffe, Lord Stratford de, speech 
of, 444. 

Rekshere, tomb of, 10. 

Relics, first reckoned precious, 95. 

Reneirius, the inqtiisitor, 120. 

Rephaim, 34. 

Rephidim, 17. 

Reports,Society’s, not dullbooks,371 

Responsibilities of the friends of 
the Bible, 369. 

Revelation, meaning of, 1; at first 
given to the Jewish nation 
only, 81; committed afresh to 
the apostles for all nations, 81. 

Review of the past, 479. 

Roman-Catholic priest opposed, 
314; the priests and the Apo¬ 
crypha, in South America, 333. 




INDEX. 


507 


Roll, the lost, 45; the burnt, 46. 

Roman dominion, 66. 

Rome Pagan changed to Rome 
Papal, 98. 

Romaunt translation, 117. 

Rosetta Stone, 9. 

Sabat and Abdallah, 339. 

Sadducees infidels, 74. 

Saint Paul’s-cross, 100,101. 

Samaritan Jews, 45; Pentateuch, 45. 

Samuel, the prophet, 37, 38. 

Satan’s two vast schemes against 
the Book, 93. 

Saviour, our, public ministry of, 86. 

Sawtree, William, 130. 

Scheiddegger, Catherine, 243. 

Schepler, Maria, 243. 

Scotland, 85, 107,109, 238, 239. 

Scriptorium^ 130. 

Scriptures, five ancient versions of, 
99; scattered by persecution, 86. 

Sennacherib, 54. 

Septuagint translation, 62. 

Serpents, fiery, 29. 

Serpent-worship, 68, 69. 

Seven sins of Israel, 23. 

Shacklewell, printing establishment 
at, 201. 

Shagdur’s bushel of seed-corn, 399. 

Shishak, 40. 

Simon the Just, 63. 

Sinai, 20; eleven months at, 24. 

Societies for the distribution of the 
Scriptures existing before the 
establishment of the British 
and Foreign Bible Society, 233. 

Solomon, 39. 

Song of the Jubilee begun, 469. 

Souls, transmigration of, 5. 

South America, 331. 

Spain possessed the gospel in the 
first century, 84. 

Spain and Portugal, 418, 419; dis¬ 
tribution of the Scriptures in, 
419. 

Steinkopff, Dr., 228; his visit to 
Germany, in 1851, 458. 

Stereotype plates, 205. 

Stones of memoriai, 69, 70. 

Subscriber to the Bible blessed, 
263. 

Superstition in South America, 333. 

Swabia, communication from a 
Roman-Catholic clergyman in, 
315. 

Sweden, 280 ; religious state of, 281; 
results of distribution in, 282. 


Swedish Bible, 181. 

Switzerland, 278 ; and North Italy 
420. 

Sympathy with Bible Society, 465. 
Synagogues, 73; rulers of, 73. 
Syrian Christians, 302; at Aleppo, 
306; Old Testament, 305; Pen¬ 
tateuch, 189; vine, 25. 


Tacitus, 84. 

Tahiti, Rev. J. Williams in, 343, 
408; Bible prized in, 409. 

Tahitians and Romish priest, con¬ 
versation between, 410. 

Talmud, 76. 

Tamil, first, Indian translation, 247 ; 
territory, 247; Scriptures, scar¬ 
city of, 247. 

Targums, 74. 

Tartary, Scriptures amongst Jews 
in, 453; movement amongst 
Jews in, 453. 

Teachers, false, 87; uninspired, 88. 

Teignmouth, Lord, 349; sentiment 
of, 187. 

Temple at Jerusalem rebuilt under 
Ezra, 48; taken by Pompey, 
66; cleansing of, 65; rebuilt by 
Herod, 73. 

Tertullian, saying of, 88. 

Thebes, or Theba, meaning of, 5; 
its Scripture name, 6; Mr. 
Jowett at, 338. 

Thompson, Dr., extract from letter 
by, 332. 

Toulouse, law made at, 127. 

Tract a pioneer to the Bible, 367. 

Tract Society, depository of, 159. 

Tradition, patriarchal, 3. 

Translations of the Bible, list of 
fifty, made previous to 1804, 
169. 

Translations, how obtained, 191; 
for India, by Dr. Carey, 185; 
preparing for Europe, 137. 

Triads of the Druids, 71. 

Tribes, the lost ten, 43. 

Tonstall, Bishop, 152. 

Turkey, European and Asiatic, 324, 
330. 

Turkish Bible, finished, 328; manu¬ 
script, by Ali Bey, 325. 

TllQPflBV 491 

Tyndal, William 148, 151,153, 162; 
death of, and of Wolsey, com¬ 
pared, 163. 

Tyre. 57. 



508 


INDEX. 


Type distribution of, 205; cost of, 
for Diamond Bible, 206. 

Union among free-thinkers, 370; 
for God’s word’s sake, 173; 
two first principles of, in early 
church, 89; coming back to 
these, 231, 480. 

United Brethren, 123. 

United States of America, 288. 

Vaudois Church, 115, 311, 448. 

Yaudois people, 118, 119; know¬ 
ledge of Scripture, 119; perse¬ 
cutions of, 121,122; sufferings, 
241; reception at Geneva, 242. 

Versions of Scripture: ancient, 99; 
Alexandrine, 101; before 1804, 
169; Coverdale’s, 179; DeSacy’s, 
138 ; Douay, 186 ; Dutch, 171; 
extant in first century, 140; in 
sixteenth, 140; New-England 
Indian, 172; Malay, 171; Olive- 
tan’s, 138 ; Persian, 183; Tamil, 
171; Tyndal’s, 179; Welsh, 181; 
Wiclifs, 178; Bohemian, 183; 
Pali, 184. 

Vigilantius, 101. 

Voices from heaven, 3. 


Wady Mokatteb, 19. 

Waldenses Bible Society, 311. 
Waldo, Peter, 117. 

Wales, collections in, 231; scarcity 
of Scriptures in,224; circulating 
schools in, 224; large portions 
of Bible committed to memory 
by Welsh children, 225. 

Walsh, Sir John, 150. 

Wandering of Israelites, 27; thirty- 
eight years of unknown, 26. 

Warehouse, Bible Society’s, 197. 

War in Europe, time of, 245; pri¬ 
soners of war, 245. 

Welsh Bible, 181. 

Welsh language compared with the 
Breton, 189. 

Wiclif, 124; his monument, 128; 
pulpit, 129; version of Scrip¬ 
tures, 179; revenge on, 128; his 
Testament, 179. 

Williams, Bev. John, his letter on 
translation, 344. 

Winged bull, 53. 

Wolsey’s search for New Testa¬ 
ments, 155. 

Wong-shao-yet colporteur in China, 
400. 

Written voices of God. 200 


ADDENDA. 

Results of the Jubilee Year, 483. 



JOHN CASSELL’S WORKS AND PUBLICATIONS, 

PUBLISHED BY 

W. KENT AND CO., 51 & 52, PATERNOSTER ROW. 


THE POPULAR EDUCATOR 

Is the most comprehensive and compendious Educational Work ever issued from the 
press. It is now completed in Six Volumes, crown 4to., price 4s. 6d. each, in cloth 
boards, or in Three Double Volumes, price 8s. 6d. each. These volumes form an 
Encyclopaedia of Instruction, popular and easy of acquirement, commencing with 
simple rules, immediately interesting the Pupil, and urging him rapidly on from one 
stage to another until perfection is attained. The Course includes— 

liang’uag’es- French, 82 Lessons and 34 Readings—French Pronunciation, 7 
Lessons—German, 86 Lessons—German Pronunciation, 13 Lessons—Italian, 53 Les¬ 
sons—Spanish, 23 Lessons—Latin, 60 Lessons—Greek, 62 Lessons—English, 72 
Lessons. 


Sciences— In these the Lessons are illustrated by several hundred Engravings, 
Diagrams, &c. They include Natural Philosophy, a complete Course, in 78 Lessons — 
Chemistry, 33 Lessons—Botany, 16 Lessons—Geology, 61 Lessons—Geography, with 
Maps, 30 Lessons—Natural History, 23 Lessons—Geometry, 35 Lessons—Arithmetic, 
37 Lessons —Algebra, 30 Lessons—Book-keeping, 24 Lessons—Trigonometry, 6 
Lessons—Architecture, 6 Lessons—a complete Series of Lessons in Music, with 
engraved Examples; also on Drawing, Penmanship, Phonetic Shorthand, Ancient 
History, Biography, Reading and Elocution, with numerous Examples; Moral Sci¬ 
ence, the Theory and Practice of Teaching, Physical Education, Gymnastics, &c. &c. 

THE POPULAR EDUCATOR can be obtained also in Weekly Numbers, Three 
Halfpence each, or in Monthly Parts, Sevenpence each, or when containing Five 
Numbers, Eightpence Halfpenny each. Cases for binding the Single Volumes, price 
Is. 3d. ; Double Volumes, Is. 9d. 

The first three Volumes of THE POPULAR EDUCATOR are published in a 
cheaper form. Price, neatly bound in cloth, 3s. 6d. each ; or the Three Volumes bound 
in One, price 9s. 6d. Containing Lessons in English and English Grammar, French, 
Latin, German, Geometry, Arithmetic, Geography, Geology, Natural History, Botany, 
Biography, Ancient History, Architecture, Music, Physiology, and an immense 
quantity of useful and general information. Can also be had in Penny Numbers, 
and in Parts, Fivepence and Sixpence. Cases fo* binding, Is. each ; or for Three 
Volumes in One, Is. 9d. each. 


Extract from an Article which appeared i.i the “ Dublin University Magazine .* 

14 We must say a few words on the works of one who has meritoriously exerted him¬ 
self to supply a very numerous class with the means of self-education, which has been 
hitherto almost wholly overlooked—we mean those who had acquired the mere art of 
reading, and yet were already gone beyond their school days. In districts which have 
become largely populated, as in Lancashire and Yorkshire, the iron districts of W ales, 
Staffordshire potteries, &c., there existed an awful mass of vice and ignorance. It 
was for one who had risen by his own exertions, from that very class, to ease and 
fortune, and had sedulously cultivated his own intellect, to perceive and to sympa- 
thise with their condition. This man was John Cassell. For eight or nine years he 
has now laboured, with all the energies of his nature, to diffuse knowledge and sound 
principle amongst the working classes.” After mentioning the success that attended 
the publication of the “ Working Man’s Friend,” and a series of lessons in French, 
reprinted from the same, the writer continues: “He proceeded confidently to the 
publication of his ‘ Popular Educator.’ He called into action the services or 
men of first-rate accomplishments and talents in art, science, and literature. e 
sensation excited amongst the working classes was immense. We have gone over 
the paces of this great work with sentiments of real wonder. The execution o every 
portion of it is masterly. The lessons by Dr. Beard, of Manchester, are admirable ; 
and of all the systems of geology that we have seen, there is none that can bear any 
comparison with that of Dr. Jenkyn in the ‘ Popular Educator, in point of fasci¬ 
nation for the student. We know no work like it. We confidently assert that 
there never was one like it in importance to the working man. The success has 
been enormous; it has occupied and filled up a field of education vast and most im¬ 
portant to the community.” 




THE BOOK AND ITS MISSIONS. 

Vol. I., price 2s. 6d., cloth ; extra cloth, gilt edges, 3s. 6d. Vol. II., limp cloth, 
2s. bd.; cloth boards, 3s.; extra cloth, gilt edges, 3s. 6d.; or the Two Vols. in 1, 
cloth plain, 5s. Od. ; extra cloth, gilt edges, 6s. Also in monthly parts, 2d. each. 

Cases for binding Single Vols., Is. each; Double , Is*. 3 d. 

The wide acceptance which, among all classes, has attended the “Book and its 
Story ” appeared to invite some periodical record in popular form of the continued 
progress of the same Holy Volume among all nations. An investigation of two years 
into the Missions of the Book has well repaid inquiry. Information on this one sub¬ 
ject is here gathered together, which will be found nowhere else. The articles include 
a large amount of well-authenticated anecdotes, and are interwoven with sketches of 
natural scenery and historical events (pictures in words) which will render the u'ork 
acceptable to the general as w'ell as the religious reader. It is well adapted for use in 
schools and families. The two volumes now issued will form a handsome Christmas 
Present or School Prize; we may add that it is earnestly recommended by the officers 
of the Bible Society. 


13 Books, each complete in itself, in handsome wrappers, with gilt edges, 

price 6d. each. 

MARY HQWITFS ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY FOR THE 

YOUNG: 

Forming the most elegant, entertaining, and instructive Series for the amusement of 
the Young ever published at so cheap a price. 

Containing: The Dog—Bears, their Haunts and Habits—Serpents and Serpent 
Charmers— A Peep into the Insect World—shells and Coral—Savage Beasts of the 
Wilderness—China and the Chinese—Human Habitations—Household Pets—Water- 
fowd and Swimming Birds, Monkeys and their Frolics—Butterflies and Moths—and 
Mont Blanc and its Climbers. 

Embellished with nearly 150 Engravings in the first style of Art. 
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 

“ Written in a simple and amusing style, well calculated to dispose young people 
to the study of natural history, geography, entomology, and other useful sciences. 
We can cordially recommend the little books to the attention of parents.”— Illustrated 
London News. 

“ The books are beautifully got up, and well adapted for a present.”— Dispatch . 


JUbT PUBLISHED, 

Willi Sketches of nearly One Hundred additional Celebrities, 

A New Edition, small 8vo., 896 pages, price 12s. 6d., 

MEN OF THE TIME; OR. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 
OF EMINENT LIVING CHARACTERS:- 

Authors, Architects, Artists, Composers, Capitalists, Dramatists, Divines, Dis¬ 
coverers, Engineers, Journalists, Men of Science, Ministers, Monarchs, Novelists, 
Painters, Philanthropists, Poets, Politicians, Savans, Sculptors, Statesmen, Travellers, 
Voyagers, Warriors, with Biographies of celebrated Women. 

Now ready, price 3s. bd., neatly bouud in cloth, 

THE BALANCE OF BEAUTY; 

OR, THE LOST IMAGE RESTORED. 

By Jane Kennedy, Author of “ Sketches of Character,” “Julian,” “ Young Maids 
and Old Maids,” “Things New and Old,” &c., &c., &c 

From the Weekly Messenger . 

“ Miss Kennedy may take it for granted that those who ju Ige purely upon the 
merits of her literary performances, and with thorough impartiality, will do her the 
justice to inform the public that her last tale show's abundant proofs of cleverness, a 
shrewd appreciation of character, and an earnest disposition to be useful for the pro¬ 
motion of sound learning and accurate religious training. We have come to this 
conclusion after a careful perusal of ‘ The Balance of Beauty,* and have much plea¬ 
sure in recording such an opinion of its merits.” 

LONDON: W. KENT and CO., PATERNOSTER ROW, E C. 





Now ready, in Two Vols., crown 4to., price 11s. 

THE RE-ISSTJE OF THE BIBLICAL EDUCATOR. 

It can also be had in 48 Numbers at 2d. each-24 Parts at 4d., and 11 Parts at od.and 
l id. each—or in one Thick Volume at l0s.6d. Cases for binding, Is. 3d. & ls.pd. 
The Articles which enrich these Volumes have been written by gentlemen of ac¬ 
knowledged attainments in literary, critical, and theological knowledge; the public 
are lamiliar with their names and their works, and were we at liberty to mention them 
we feel that the already large circulation of the Biblical Educator would be 
greatly extended.. Although this publication has been issued from the press in a 
serial form, yet it is of an ephemeral and passing interest, but forms a work of 
standard authority and permanent interest; in fact, it is an Encyclopedia of Biblical 
knowledge. 

THE HISTORICAL EDUCATOR, 

Complete in Two Volumes, crown 4to., price 6s. each in cloth boards, or Ils. 6d. the 
Two Volumes in One. This work forms a Companion to the Popular Edu¬ 
cator. These Volumes contain — I. The History of Geography, including the 
Voyages and Discoveries of Hanno, the Carthaginian Navigator: Herodotus, the 
Greek .Traveller; Ctesias, Phythias, Nearchus, Julius Caesar, Pausanias, Fa- 
Hian, &c., with upwards of three hundred curious and interesting Engravings, 
the preparations of which incurred an outlay of nearly One Thousand Pounds. 
II. The History of the United States of America, by Mary Howitt. III. The 
History of Greece, by Messrs. E. L. and J. Godkin. IV. The History of English 
Literature, by Dr. J. R. Beard. V. Chronology from the Earliest Period. 

A SERIES OF LESSONS IN FRENCH, with Rules for Pro¬ 

nunciation. Price 6d., or post free, price 7d. 

CASSELL’S FRENCH AND ENGLISH DICTIONARY. 

Price 4s. sewed, 5s. cloth. 

CASSELL’S ENGLISH AND FRENCH DICTIONARY. 

Prip/» ia spwpn Re plrtth 

CASSELL’S FRENCH AND ENGLISH AND ENGLISH 

AND FRENCH DICTIONARY. Price 9s. 6d. cloth ; post free, 10s. 

CASSELL’S LESSONS IN FRENCH, from the POPULAR 

EDUCATOR, with a complete view of the Idioms of the French Language, in a 
series of Easy and Progressive Lessons, by which the self-educating student may 
learn to read, to speak, and to write the French Language with the greatest 
facility. Part I., sewed, 2s.; cloth, 2s. 6d.; post free, sewed, 2s. Id.; cloth, 2s. 7d. 
Part II. the same price as Part. I. Parts I. and II. together, cloth, 4s. 6d.; 
post free, 4s. 8d. 

KEY TO THE EXERCISES IN CASSELL’S LESSONS IN 

FRENCH. In paper wrappers, Is.; cloth boards, Is. 6d. ; post free, sewed, 
Is. Id.; cloth, Is. 7d. 

CASSELL’S COLLOQUIAL FRENCH READER; or, Inter¬ 
esting Narratives in French for Translation, accompanied by Conversational 
Exercises, &c., By Louis Fasquelle, LL.D. Price 2s. sewed, 2s.6d. cloth; 
post free, 2s. Id. sewed, 2s. yd. cloth. 

A COMPLETE MANUAL OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE. 

By Professor De Lolme, in which the grammatical principles of the Language 
are clearly laid down. Price 3s. cloth, or 3s. Id. post free. 

Price Is., bound in cloth, 

CASSELL’S ENGLISH SPELLING AND READING BOOK ; 

with upwards of 150 Engravings on Wood. 

The orthographical portion of this Spelling Book is taken, for the most part, 
from the ,4 Elementary Spelling Book,” by Noah Webster, LL.D., of Con¬ 
necticut, the sale of which, in the United States, has reached one million copies 
per annum. It includes numerous exercises in spelling. The lessons in reading 
are suited to the capacities of children, and to their gradual progress in general 
knowledge, and enlivened by appeals to their senses, through the medium of 
pictorial representations. 

LONDON: W. KENT and CO.,5J Sr 52, PATERNOSTER ROW. 


THE ILLUSTRATED GIFT BOOKS 

FOE THE YEAE 1858, 

Suitable for Christmas, New-Year, and Birthday Presents, 

PUBLISHED BY 

W. KENT AND CO. (late D. Bogue), 

Fleet Street and Paternoster Row. 


In demy 4to., richly ornamented, 21s. plain ; 42s. coloured, 

The Coves of the Poets; or. Portraits of Ideal Beauty j 

being 12 original Steel Engravings drawn by the most eminent Artists, and en¬ 
graved by Mote ; with Illustrative Text by Tennyson, Wordsworth, &c. 

It is hoped that this beautiful Volume will be an acceptable substitute for the 
Court Album and Keepsake, which will not be published this season. 

In small 4to., handsome cloth binding, l6s.; morocco, 24s., 

The Miller’s Slaughter. By Alfred Tennyson. Illus¬ 
trated with 1 7 Steel Engravings, drawn by A. L. Bond, and engraved by Mote. 
With a Portrait of the Author. 

In small 4to., ornamental boards, 6s. plain, 10s. 6d. coloured. 

The Fables of iFsop and Others. Translated Into 
human nature, with 25 Humorous Illustrations by Charles H. Bennett, Author 
of “ Shadows.” 

In crown 8vo., price 10s. 6d. cloth gilt, l6s. morocco, 

Congfellow’s Kavanagh. With 39 Illustrations by 

Birket Foster. Forming a companion volume to the other illustrated works of 
this admired author, 

“ In this work Mr. Foster has more than supplied the requirements of the most 
fastidious, and his exquisite engravings, illustrative of such a story, are very like 
gilding refined gold.”— Court Circular. 

In crown 8vo., price 21s.; ditto, gilt, 30s. morocco, 
Congfellow’s Poems; illustrated with 170 Engravings 
on Wood from designs by Birket Foster, Jane E. Hay, and Jno. Gilbert. 

“This edition of the writings of the most popular American poet is worthy of 
being made a household book in the homes of Great Britain.”— Art Journal. 
Third Edition, richly bound, 25s. ; morocco, 35s., 

Christmas with the Poets; A Collection of Songs* 
Carols, and Descriptive Verses relating to the Festival of Christmas. Embel¬ 
lished with 50 Tinted Illustrations by Birket Foster, with Initial Letters and other 
ornaments, and gold borders. This extremely beautiful volume has been shown 
by the Trustees of the British Museum as a triumph of typographic and pic¬ 
torial art. 

In imperial 8vo., in a richly-ornamented binding, 21s., 

Milton’s Allegro, II Fenseroso, with upwards of 30 

Illustrations, drawn and etched by Birket Foster, 'fhe text printed in red. 

“ Altogether one of the handsomest and most beautiful books which has come 
under our notice; it deserves a place on every drawing-room table.”— Morning 
Post. 

New Edition, demy 8vo., 12s. cloth ; 18s. morocco, 

Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress; illustrated with up¬ 
wards of 300 Engravings on Wood, from designs by Wm. Harvey ; with a fine 
Portrait of the Author, and a Memoir of his Life by Dr. Cheever, written ex¬ 
pressly for this edition. 

In oblong folio, handsome cover by Crowquill, 12s., 

Merry Pictures by Comic Mands. Being a Collection of 

Humorous Designs by Phiz, Crowquill, Doyle, Leech, Meadows, Hine, &c., with 
Illustrative Text. 


London : W. Kent & Co. 86, Fleet Street and Paternoster Eow. 











PROFESSOR LONGFELLOW’S NEW VOLUME OF POEMS. 

Now Ready, in fcp. 8vo, line paper, 5s. cloth gilt; cheap edition, price Is., paper cover, 

THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH, and other 

Poems. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. (Author’s protected Edition.) 

*** Two large Editions were sold in an incredibly short time, and to secure copies of the Third 
Edition orders must be given at ouce. 

LONGFELLOW’S POEMS, Birket Foster’s beautifully 

Illustrated IN ion. This is tbe only illustrated edition that contains the “ Goldeu Legend,” Crown 
bvo, cloth, gilt. 21s.; morocco, elegant or antique, 30s. 

L < XGI ELLOW’S POEMS. Complete Edition, including 

“ Mi; Str.ndWi,” with Fomleen Plates and Portrait, fcp. Svo, cloth, 7s.; morocco, elegant »r 
antique, Ids. (id. 

LONGFELLOW’S PROSE WORKS. Illustrated, fcp. 8vo, 

cloth, 6 b.; morocco, 10s. Gd. 

LONGFELLOW’S HYPERION, Illustrated by Biuret Fos- 

ter. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 21s. j morocco, ,30s. 

LONGFELLOW’S EVANGELINE. Illustrated by Birket 

Foster. Crown 8vo, 10s. ,6d.; morocco, 16s. 

LONGFELLOW’S VOICES OF THE NIGHT. Illustrated 

by Birket Foster. .Crown 8vo, cloth, 15s.; morocco, 21s. 


LONGFELLOW’S GOLDEN LEGEND. Illustrated by Bie- 

ket Foster. Crown -Svo, cloth, 12s.j morocco. 21s.; fcp. 8vo, cloth, 5s., cheap edition. 






LONGFELLOW’S 

cloth, 5s. ; morocco, l)s. 


SONG OF HIAWATHA. F*p. Svo, 


THE BOOK AND ITS MISSIONS. Edited by L. N. IF, 

Author of the “Book and its Story,” and dedicated to the British and Foreign. Bible Society. Tbe 
great success attending tbe publication of “The Book and its Story ” led the Author to believe that 
a Monthly Periodical, faithfully narrating the “Missions' of the Book” in all parts of the world, 
would be particularly acceptable to the readers of “The Book ami its Story,” and to the religious 
community generally. The result has fully realised expectations, twenty-seven monthly numbers at 
2d. each, and two volumes being atreudy published. Volf. I. and II., in one handsome volume, 
cloth, 5s.; extra gilt, €s.; or, separately, VoL I., cloth, 2s. 6d.; extra gilt, 3s. Gd.; Vol. 1L limp 
cloth, 2s. Gd.; cloth boards, 3s.; extra cloth gilt, 3s. 6J. Cases for binding single volumes. Is.; 
double. Is. 3d. 






THE RE-ISSUE OF THE BIBLICAL EDUCATOR.— 

The Articles which enrich these volumes have been written by gentlemen of acknowledged attain¬ 
ments iii literary, critical, and theological knowledge. The public are familiar with their names and 
their works, and wore we at liberty to mention them we feel that the already large circulation of the 
BIBLICAL EDUCATOR would be greatly extended. Although this publication haa been issued 
from the Press in a serial form, yet it is not of an ephemeral and passing interest, but forms a work of 
standard authority and permanent interest; in fact, it is an Encyclopaedia of Biblical Knowledge. 
Now ready, in 2 vols., crown 4to, price 11s.; or, in one thick volume, at 10s. Gd. It can also be had 
in 48 nos., at 2d. each, 24 parts at 4d., and 11 parts at 9d. and lid. each. Cases for binding, Is. 3d . 
aud Is. 9d. 




MEN OF THE TIME.; or, Biographical Sk (Hies of the most 

Eminent Persons in Literature, Science and Art, Religion, War, Polities, Commerce, &v.; with 
Biographies of Celebrated Women. Now ready, a greatly enlarged Edition, price 12s. Gd., 

is an extremely useful dictionary of fact aud gossip about the well-known men and women 
—Economist. 



compilation, this w T ork deserves high praise.”—Observer. 

W. KENT & CO., PATERNOSTER ROW, & 86, FLEET STREET. 
























